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Working-class neighborhoods in Homs, Syria, under control of opposition forces have been under a combination of blockade-enforced starvation and relentless aerial bombardment for months by forces loyal to the regime of Bashar al-Assad, who has launched an offensive to retake as much territory as possible ahead of presidential elections scheduled for June 3.
Government bombers and troops from Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Syrian paramilitary forces have pushed rebel units back in a number of areas over the past few months. Homs, the country’s third largest city, has been at the center of the popular protest movement against Assad that took to the streets in 2011. Above, destruction from government offensive April 15, 2012.
More than one-third of Syria’s 21 million people have lost their homes. Some 2.6 million have fled the country.
Rebel forces on the offensive in Aleppo, the country’s largest city, reported April 13 that a child was killed and 50 others injured when government planes dropped canisters filled with toxic chlorine gas in neighboring Hama and Idlib provinces.
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