Homs lacks food and water, turns into a ghost town

BEIRUT — Troops pounded besieged districts of the flashpoint city of Homs as 15 people were killed in violence across Syria Sunday, taking the weekend death toll to 84, a watchdog said.

A civilian was killed in the rebel stronghold of Khalidiyeh, which, like other parts of the central city, was “being shelled since this morning and shot at by regime forces who have been trying to take control of these districts,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

A rebel fighter was killed in a clash with regime troops in the Karm Shamsham neighborhood of Homs, while another man was shot dead by a sniper in the Old City.

Speaking to AFP via Skype from the Old City neighborhood, activist Abu Bilal said the regime siege of several parts of the city was “suffocating.”

“They are shelling us all the time. There’s very little food and water, and we’re running out of medication.”

Video posted on YouTube by activists showed clouds of black and grey smoke rising over buildings in the Old City, as the sound of shelling and shooting ripped through the silence of what appeared to be a ghost town.

Abu Bilal, reiterated warnings by the opposition and rights watchdogs, said people trapped in the city “will be massacred” if regime forces enter the encircled districts.

The observatory has said that more than 1,000 families were trapped in Homs, adding that there was a lack of medical staff and equipment.

Home to several rebel hideouts, Homs has been under intermittent attack by regime forces ever since its Baba Amr neighborhood was relentlessly pounded for a month earlier this year and retaken by the regime.

Elsewhere in the country, a civilian was shot dead by a sniper at Khan Sheikhun in the northwestern province of Idlib, the observatory said.

Regime forces, meanwhile, shelled the village of Abyan in the northern province of Aleppo, killing a man, while another man died in the town of Andan.

Regime forces have been trying to take over Andan from rebel fighters, who are in turn “resisting fiercely,” the observatory said.

Violence also hit other areas of Syria, including the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, where clashes between regime troops and rebels killed two people, one of them a rebel fighter, the observatory said.

Sixty-nine people were killed across the country on Saturday — 51 civilians, 16 troops and two rebels — according to the observatory which says more than 14,400 people have died in the 15-month uprising. — AFP