600 days into the fight, Syria’s rebels retain control over central Homs, and the army holds the rest of the city. Its a siege both sides agree is unproductive, and causing a humanitarian crisis.
The war itself is stalemated, as it has been for many months now, and the talks on opening up the area to humanitarian aid seem just as stalemated, with neither side willing to give in to reach a deal.
The government offered to let women and children out of central Homs, a proposal spurned as a “ploy” by the rebels, and while the opposition at the Geneva talks pushes for convoy access, neither the government nor rebel fighters on the ground seem to be able to come up with terms of how that would work, leading the UN to conclude deliveries are impossible.
The Homs talks seem to be moving at the same snail’s pace as talks about everything else at the Geneva II conference, where both sides seem more interested in using the lack of resolution to portray the other as unreasonable than they do at making deals on individual problems.
It is because the "aid convoys" would be used to smuggle arms and "fighters" – what the "aid convoys" are used for as standard in these situations in country after country.
It would have been helpful if this had been stated..
What motivation would the rebels have for preventing women and children from leaving other than using them as hostages or a human shield? Once they left, the government would bomb the hell out of the rebels.