Homs evacuations resume as Syria peace talks falter

The evacuation of civilians and delivery of aid to besieged rebel-held areas of Syria's third city Homs resumed on Wednesday, as peace talks in Geneva struggled to make headway.Government and opposition delegations met face to face on day three of the second round of talks in Switzerland city after UN-Arab League mediator Lakhdar Brahimi admitted "we are not making much progress".And the talks had no effect whatsoever on the bloodshed on the ground, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reporting an average daily death toll of 236 people since the launch of their first round on January 22, the highest since the uprising erupted nearly three years ago.A total of 217 civilians, who wanted to escape more than 18 months of tight army blockade, were evacuated from the rebel enclave on Wednesday, after the relief operation was suspended the previous day, provincial governor Talal al-Barazi told AFP."The operation went well and smoothly," Barazi said.The evacuations bring the total number of people given safe passage out since Friday to more than 1,400.They came hours after 190 food parcels and 4,700 kilogrammes (10,340 pounds) of flour were taken into the besieged rebel enclave, the Syrian Red Crescent's head of operations Khaled Erksoussi said. The Red Crescent tweeted pictures of its staff loading sacks of aid onto flat-bed trucks for delivery to civilians who have chosen to remain inside the war-battered enclave.According to the World Food Programme, 310 food parcels and 1.5 tons of flour have been distributed since Friday."There are children there, and this is very heartbreaking, that this is the first time they see a banana," Erksoussi told AFP."Our psychological support teams are there to try to deal with the cases as they come out, but eventually the teams themselves will need psychological care because the situation is very emotional."Red Crescent staff backed by UN agencies began evacuating some of the estimated 3,000 civilians trapped in besieged areas on Friday under a UN brokered humanitarian truce between the government and the rebels.Concern has grown, however, over the fate of some 336 male evacuees aged between 15 and 55, who UN officials say were detained for questioning by the security services as they left Homs.According to governor Barazi, 111 of them have since been released.Activists inside Homs said some men leaving had been prevented from heading to the destinations of their choice and had been stripped of their standard issue identity cards."There are some 60 activists in the besieged areas. Some of them want to leave, but will only do so if there are guarantees for their safety," said Yazan, an activist who asked that his full name not be published for fear of retribution.The evacuations have also been marred by violence, in violation of the promised truce, with aid convoys coming under fire and 14 people killed in shelling.'Chance won't come again'Erksoussi said there were particular difficulties in finding a safe route out for a group of 28 families, mostly Christians, in the Bustan al-Diwan district. Governor Barazi said earlier that the Christians were among those set to be evacuated Wednesday, but there was no immediate confirmation that they had made it out.The operation has been welcomed internationally and is providing desperately needed relief for civilians who have described surviving on little more than olives and wild plants."We will use any chance we get to get in and deliver aid and help people to leave, because we believe this chance won't come again," Erksoussi said.In Geneva, there were signs that Damascus ally Moscow, which is cosponsoring the talks with Washington, aimed to play a greater role in trying to break the deadlock as the second round dragged on into a third day.The opposition warned it would not attend a third round of talks if no progress was made.But Syria's National Reconciliation Minister Ali Haidar warned on Tuesday that the talks "under the current circumstances, will end in failure."The opposition insists on the formation of a transitional government without President Bashar al-Assad.But the government says Assad's future is non-negotiable and that the talks must focus instead on halting "terrorism" by the rebels.