Over 80 people were evacuated from Syria’s embattled Homs City on Friday after having survived there for nearly two years, and more people are expected to leave under a three-day truce, a U.N. spokesperson said.
“The United Nations can confirm that 83 people were evacuated from Old Homs City today, during a three-day humanitarian pause agreed between the parties to the conflict,” Xinhua quoted Farhan Haq, the acting deputy U.N. spokesperson as saying during a daily news briefing.
“The people — women, children and the elderly — were then delivered to places of their choice, escorted by (the) United Nations and Syrian Arab Red Crescent staff,” Mr. Haq said.
U.N. under-secretary-general for humanitarian affairs and U.N. emergency relief coordinator, Valerie Amos, welcomed Friday’s operation as “a breakthrough, and a small but important step towards compliance with international humanitarian law”.
