Two years after the last Syrian rebels left the besieged Old City of Homs, voices echo through the shells of bombed-out buildings, their upper floors tilted at odd angles as though frozen in time.
A car bomb exploded Saturday in a government-held neighborhood in the central Syrian city of Homs, killing at least 16 people and wounding dozens, state media and an opposition monitoring group said.
Hundreds of rebels and their families on Wednesday left the last opposition-held neighborhood of Homs as part of a local truce that will bolster government control of the city, while opposition groups met in Saudi Arabia to forge a united front ahead of proposed peace talks.
The United Nations humanitarian chief, Valerie Amos, said she was shocked over what she had witnessed in Syria last week, again calling on President Bashar Assad’s regime to allow unfettered access to humanitarian aid groups.
The Red Cross on Sunday said that it has still not been able to access the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, which has been under heavy assault by the Syrian army for weeks.