MESOP News Roundup: Monday, May 5 – Old Homs rebels await evacuation as ceasefire holds

Rebels have not yet withdrawn from Old Homs as of Monday, three days after government and rebel forces reached a truce to allow them safe passage out of the 13 encircled neighborhoods. “The actual work could begin Tuesday” to evacuate civilians and rebels with their light weaponry to northern Homs province under United Nations supervision, an activist inside Old Homs called Nour told Syria Direct Monday.

In exchange, rebel groups will “release 70 regime prisoners, most of them from the National Defense Forces rather than Syrian army, including a female Iranian detainee” held by the Islamic Front, Hassan Abu al-Zain, another rebel activist inside Old Homs told Syria Direct. – Meanwhile, Homs governor Talal al-Barazi lauded the process, saying he was “optimistic that the path of reconciliation that began in Old Homs could spread to al-Waer during the coming period,” referencing the government-encircled, rebel-controlled neighborhood adjacent to encircled Old Homs. Syrian government troops initially surrounded the 13 neighborhoods of Old Homs in June 2012 and remain there today.

Homs, Syria’s third largest city, has been referred to as “the capital of the Syrian revolution” for the anti-regime protests that shook the city in spring 2011.