TRIPOLI: Sami groans in pain as he shifts his weight under a bundle of blankets on a stretcher bed in a makeshift hospital in the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.

The 25-year-old is one of three men in this cramped recovery ward to have escaped the besieged Syrian city of Homs in the last four days. Shot by a sniper after attempting to reach another injured protester in the rebel-held Bab Sabaa neighborhood, Sami was smuggled, injured on the back of a motorcycle to Lebanon and is recovering at the hospital established by the Islamic Higher Commission for Syrian Relief.

Alongside him, Hamza and Mustafa nurse swollen-closed eyes – the result, they say, of a shelling attack on the same area in Homs days earlier.

These men are among the estimated thousands of residents to have fled the city in recent months, who paint a picture of a city increasingly drained of inhabitants and divided along sectarian grounds.

Between fielding calls for assistance from field hospital staff in Homs to safe passage out of the city, director of the HCFSR, Abu Raed says the group has listed 14,000 Syrians who have fled to Lebanon since the uprising began in March 2011.

The vast majority – some 12,000 – are Sunnis from Homs, a city of an estimated 1 million.

Abu Raed said an additional estimated 500 have fled the city to Lebanon during a 19-day bombardment, by Syrian forces. Focused on the eastern Baba Amro and northern Al-Khaldiyeh neighborhoods, the blitz has left in excess of 400 people dead and prompted fears the Assad regime intends to “cleanse” the city.

Other Homs residents unable to leave the country altogether have sought safe haven in other cities and neighborhoods, often according to religious sect.

Speaking from the wealthy mixed neighborhood of Waer, west of Homs, Loubna said dozens of families from Brazil Street bordering the neighboring war-torn Baba Amro and wealthy Al-Inshaat relocated, fearing they would be caught in the crossfire between armed opposition groups and Syrian army shelling.

“A lot of them went to Tartous on the coast,’ she said, referring to the liberal Alawite dominated coastal city.

In an ominous sign, residents and activists said the Syrian army warned residents to leave the area.

“They told the people, ‘If you don’t get out within 48 hours you’re not gonna be safe,’” said activist Abu Emad from the outskirts of Baba Amro Tuesday.

In the Christian enclave of Bustan al-Diwan, bordering the Sunni strongholds around the Old City of Homs, residents said Christain families had been forced out by Sunni fighters launching attacks on Syrian army checkpoints in the area.

“They told them to leave, to take what they needed because they wanted to control the area,” said Loubna, adding that many had sought refuge in a nearby church.

Syria has restricted access to foreign journalists and The Daily Star was unable to independently verify accounts of migration.

“We know people are moving, definitely,” says director of Human Rights Watch in Beirut, Nadim Houry. “The minorities are tending to go to the mountainous areas.”

From his bed in Tripoli, Mustafa, 25, a former painter and decorator, says he was wounded while fighting the Syrian army. He says he took up arms to defend his neighborhood from army and Alawite Shabbiha mercenaries.

“I am not the Free Syrian Army,” he explains. “We were just civilians trying to protect the neighborhood.”

Asked why he stayed in the besieged city, Mustafa explains: “We stayed because it is our duty to protect the neighborhood and our children.

“We have a problem with the Alawites. They are animals.”

In further signs of the sectarian divide, Sunni residents boasted of the recent renaming of the Wadi Iran neighborhood, close to Bayada in the north of Homs, captured by opposition fighters. They now refer to the area as “Wadi Arab.”

“We renamed it Wadi Arab because we hate Iran,” a Homs activist in Tripoli told The Daily Star.

Another Alawite resident of Inshaat said that he had left the neighborhood for Alawite-dominated Lattakia after threats towards Alawite friends and family. “You cannot say openly you are Alawite in Homs” he told The Daily Star.

Homs student-come-activist Abu Taleh fled to Lebanon last year. He said his Sunni family sought refuge in Tartous where they believed they would be safe. “The Alawites there rejected us,” he added. “When they hear where we are from they call us troublemakers, Qataris, these kinds of things.”