‘Deal’ allows rebels to leave city of Homs

BEIRUT / AP

Syrian opposition fighters will be allowed to leave the last rebel-held neighborhood in the city of Homs under a Russia-backed deal signed on Monday, a Syrian official and an activist said.
According to Talal Barrazi, the governor of Homs province where the city of Homs is the capital, the deal is to be carried out within six to eight weeks. The rebel fighters who decide to stay in Homs can benefit from a government amnesty that was issued earlier, he added.
Homs, the country’s third largest city, was once the center of the uprising against President Bashar Assad. During the civil war, now in its sixth year, wide parts of the city were held by rebels and insurgents but the state eventually regained control of all areas of the city except for al-Waer, the last rebel neighborhood.
Al-Waer is home to about 75,000 people and has been under a government siege since 2013, triggering shortages of medicine and on occasion also food.
Barrazi’s statement, carried by state SANA news agency, said the evacuation is the third phase of a deal reached last year that saw hundreds of fighters and their families leave al-Waer to other rebel-held areas.