The international community is lauding a United Nations-brokered deal to provide relief to Homs' long-blockaded Old City, but the aid plan is far from universally welcome in this battle-scarred and profoundly divided city.
The relief effort has stirred deep animosities among many government supporters, who view it as a sellout to opposition forces — "terrorists," in official terms — hunkered down in the ruins of the Old City.
"This is basically giving the terrorists food and medicine and letting them go free," said Rihab Ismael, a dairy worker who lives in the Zahra district, a sniper-plagued zone less than a mile from what remains of the rebel-controlled Old City. "We desperately need help here too. Why is everything concentrated on the ones who made our lives unbearable?"
More than 600 people were evacuated Sunday from Old Homs under U.N. auspices, an exodus that unexpectedly included 130 fighting-age men, many accompanied by their families. The initial deal applied only to civilians and stipulated that any men ages 16 to 54 who chose to leave could face a judicial process.
Some Syrian soldiers providing security were visibly dismayed to see men who could be their rebel adversaries apparently headed to freedom under U.N. patronage.
The possibility that rebels were among the evacuees seemed likely to complicate the Old City aid process — and to further stoke fury among those who already view the deal as a betrayal.
Nowhere is the outrage more evident than in Zahra, where most residents are Alawites, the sect of Syrian President Bashar Assad.
SOME OF THESE PEOPLE WILL SOON BE COMING TO AMERICA.
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