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Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos. UN Photo/Mark Garten |
The U.N. humanitarian chief is traveling to the battered Syrian city of Homs on the first day of her mission to push for relief workers to be given unhindered access to those in need of aid.
A U.N. spokesman said Valerie Amos arrived in Damascus Wednesday, where she held talks with Syrian foreign ministry officials. She is scheduled to be in the country until Friday, and her visit will be followed a day later by former U.N. secretary-general Kofi Annan, the new special envoy to Syria.
International pressure
The visits come as international pressure mounts on Syria's government to end a crackdown on a year-long opposition uprising.
The United States said Tuesday it is proposing a new U.N. Security Council resolution to end the violence, while Turkey's leader called for immediate aid access.
"Humanitarian aid corridors to Syria must be opened right away and we must heap pressure on the Syrian administration to deliver humanitarian aid to the Syrian people, especially to Homs," Recep Tayyip Erdogan said. "The Arab League decision on Syria must be implemented without wasting any more time.'"
Erdogan also said the violence had "started to resemble an inhumane savagery in recent days" and that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will be "brought to account" for the crackdown.
Spain closed its embassy in Syria to protest the "brutal repression of the Syrian regime." France, Britain and the United States have already halted their diplomatic operations in Damascus.
Draft resolution
The new U.S. draft "demands" Syria cease all violence and protect its population while condemning the "continued, widespread and systematic" human rights violations committed by the authorities. It also calls on the armed opposition to "refrain from all violence" once those conditions are met.
Russia and China, powerful allies that blocked a similar U.N. resolution against Syria last month, made clear they are still standing by President Assad's government.
In Washington, President Barack Obama said unilateral U.S. military action against Assad's government would be a mistake.
More Syrian violence
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Photo: VOA News |
On the ground in Syria Tuesday, government troops shelled a village in southern Daraa province and clashed with army defectors. In Homs, activists said security forces carried out raids in an area next to the former opposition stronghold of Baba Amr and reported gunfire and explosions nearby.
The Red Cross said it is still awaiting approval to distribute aid to the devastated district which endured a nearly month-long siege. Residents who fled Baba Amr spoke of bodies decomposing under rubble, sewage mixing with litter in the streets and a campaign of arrests and executions.
Secretly shot video footage aired on Monday by a British television station showed what it said were Syrian patients tortured by medical staff at a state-run hospital in Homs. The video, which Channel 4 said it could not independently verify, showed wounded, blindfolded men chained to beds, some of them with clear torture marks on their bodies.
Also Tuesday, activists said the military blasted a bridge and a tunnel near the Lebanese border used as escape routes for the wounded and refugees fleeing Homs province.
Refugees
The U.N. refugee agency said at least 9,000 Syrians have fled into Lebanon since Assad began his bloody crackdown on anti-government protests last year. UNHCR spokeswoman Dana Suleiman told VOA at least 2,000 Syrians crossed the border in recent days to escape violence from the Homs region.
Syria's state-run news agency quoted President Assad Tuesday saying Syrians have proved their determination to pursue reform and fight "foreign-backed terrorism," which the government blames for the year-long unrest.
The United Nations estimates that violence linked to the uprising has killed at least 7,500 people since it began last March. Syria blames the unrest on "armed terrorist groups" backed by foreign conspirators. --- VOA News
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