HOMS, Syria — Hundreds of Syrians, some snapping photographs with their cell phones, wandered down paths carved out of rubble in the old quarters of Homs on Friday, getting their first glimpse of the horrendous destruction that two years of fighting inflicted on rebel-held parts of the city.
The scenes that greeted them were devastating: City blocks pounded into an apocalyptic vista of hollow facades of blown-out buildings. Dust everywhere. Streets strewn with rebar, shattered concrete bricks, toppled telephone poles and carcasses of cars.
For more than a year, President Bashar Assad’s troops blockaded these neighborhoods, pounding the rebel bastions with his artillery and air force. Under a deal struck this week, the government assumed control of the old quarters, while in return some 2,000 rebel fighters were granted safe passage to opposition areas north of Homs.
The final piece of the agreement fell into place Friday afternoon as the last 300 or so rebels left Homs after an aid convoy was allowed into two pro-government northern villages besieged by the opposition.
The deal handed Assad a geographic linchpin in central Syria from which to launch offensives on rebel-held territory in the north.
Even before the last rebels departed, government bulldozers were clearing paths through the heaviest rubble in Homs’ battle-scarred districts Friday. It was the first time that government troops have entered these neighborhoods — the last rebel bastions in the city — in more than a year.
Homs governor Talal Barazi said engineering units were combing Hamidiyeh and other parts of the old quarters in search of mines and other explosives. State TV said two soldiers were killed while dismantling a bomb.
In Hamidiyeh, a predominantly Christian neighborhood before the fighting caused residents to flee, people trickled back in to check on their properties.
Imad Nanaa, 52, returned to examine his home for the first time in almost three years. Miraculously, he found it almost intact, compared to other houses with shattered windows and crumbling walls.
Later, hundreds of men, women and children — some in strollers — walked through parts of the eight-mile-long old quarters, flashing victory signs and taking pictures.
People returning were required to hand over their IDs to the troops upon entering the formerly rebel-held districts. The soldiers then returned the papers as the people filed out later.
One man walked out with a guitar under his arm. A woman, Fadia al-Ahmar, left her home carrying a stack of photo albums.
“I have nothing left for me to remember so I brought these,” she said. “My house was destroyed.”
