Syria - Food and water are running dangerously low in the besieged
Syrian city of Homs, with frantic cries for help from residents amid the
latest government shelling that has pounded rebel strongholds and
killed at least 30 people, activists said.
Shells reportedly
rained down on Tuesday on rebellious districts at a rate of 10 per
minute at one point and the Red Cross called for a daily two-hour
cease-fire so that it can deliver emergency aid to the wounded and sick.
"If
they don't die in the shelling, they will die of hunger," activist and
resident Omar Shaker said after hours of intense shelling concentrated
on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Baba Amr that the opposition has
extolled as a symbol of their 11-month uprising against President Bashar
Assad's regime.
Another 33 people were killed in northern
Syria's mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya region when government forces raided
a town in pursuit of regime opponents, raising Tuesday's overall death
toll to 63, activists said.
The Local Co-ordination Committees,
an opposition group, said more than 100 were killed on Tuesday, but the
report could not immediately be confirmed by others.
Russia, one
of Assad's remaining allies, urged the United Nations to send a special
envoy to Syria to help co-ordinate security issues and delivery of
humanitarian assistance.
Military defectors
Assad's
forces showed no sign of easing their assault on Homs, Syria's
third-largest city, whose defiance has become an embarrassing
counterpoint to the regime's insistence that the opposition is mostly
armed factions with limited public support.
The rebel defences in
Homs are believed to be bolstered by hundreds of military defectors,
which has possibly complicated attempts by Syrian troops to stage an
offensive.
On Monday, reinforcements of Syrian tanks and soldiers massed outside the city in what could be a prelude to a ground attack.
"Government
troops have been unable to advance because of stiff resistance from
defectors inside," an activist in Homs said on condition of anonymity,
because of fears of government reprisal.
Another activist in
Homs said the shelling started after repeated attempts by troops to
storm the edges of Baba Amr, which the opposition has dubbed "Syria's
Misrata" after the Libyan city that refused to fall to withering
government attacks last year.
One Homs resident, communicating
with the AP by internet chat, said many people are unable or too scared
to go to the hospital for treatment. Some are bleeding to death at home.
Supplies running out
"My
cousin is a doctor and he said they've given up on treating serious
wounds. The numbers are too many to cope with especially with so little
supplies," said the resident, who has provided reliable information in
the past.
The resident spoke on condition of anonymity because of the fear of reprisal.
The
resident, who lives just outside Baba Amr, said people in the
neighbourhood were surviving mostly on stocks of rice and canned corn
and tuna, but those supplies also were running out fast after several
weeks of attacks.
Some people go without bread for days, and when
grocery stores and bakeries re-open during a lull in the shelling, long
lines form quickly, the resident said, adding that shortages exist of
all kinds of foodstuffs and vegetables.
The Red Cross said it has
been negotiating with Syrian authorities and members of the opposition
to agree a temporary cease-fire so emergency aid can reach beleaguered
parts of the country.
"The current situation requires an
immediate decision to implement a humanitarian pause in the fighting,"
said Jakob Kellenberger, the president of the Geneva-based International
Committee of the Red Cross.
Ghost city
"In Homs
and in other affected areas, entire families have been stuck for days in
their homes, unable to step outside to get bread, other food or water,
or to obtain medical care."
Kellenberger said the cease-fire
should last at least two hours daily, so that Red Cross staff and Syrian
Arab Red Crescent volunteers have enough time to deliver aid and
evacuate the wounded.
Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, the ICRC's head of
operations for the Middle East, described Homs as "sort of a ghost
city", adding that other parts of Syria also were badly affected by the
fighting.
White House spokesperson Jay Carney backed a Red Cross
call for a daily cease-fire in Syria in order to deliver humanitarian
aid.
"The reprehensible actions perpetrated by the Syrian regime,
the brutal violence perpetrated by the Syrian leader against his own
people, has led us to this situation where basic supplies, humanitarian
supplies are very scarce and therefore action needs to be taken," Carney
said.
US State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland said
Washington was focused on "increasing the international isolation and
the international pressure on the Assad regime to stop the violence
altogether, so that we can move on to a democratic transition".
No water
In
the northern province of Aleppo, the government said a Syrian
businessman, Mahmoud Ramadan, was shot to death in front of his home in
what appeared to be the latest in a series of targeted killings.
The
attacks, which include the slaying of an Aleppo city council member on
Saturday, suggest that rebel factions are increasingly turning to arms
to strike back at members of Assad's ruling system.
Residents and
activists say a monthslong siege and stepped up attacks on Baba Amr
recently have left the district without enough food, water, medicine and
electricity.
"They bombed all the water tanks on the roofs of
buildings. There's no water. Some people have gone without bread for
days," said Shaker, who estimated the shells fell at a rate of about 10
per minute at some points in the attack.
More than 200 people were wounded, he said, adding that two children were among the dead.
Phone lines with Homs have been cut, making it difficult to get firsthand accounts from residents.
Hamas solidarity
One
amateur video posted on the internet showed thick smoke and shells
slamming behind a building in Baba Amr. Another showed a shop on the
ground floor of a building on fire as a narrator cries: "We are dying.
Where are the Arabs?"
The Arab League has tried to pressure Assad into a peace process with the opposition, but he has refused.
In
another possible shift away from Assad, about 500 Palestinians gathered
in Gaza at a Hamas-authorised demonstration in solidarity with Syrian
protesters.
Assad has long hosted and supported leaders of the
Islamic Hamas movement, which rules Gaza. But as the body count in Syria
continues to rise, Hamas has been trying to distance itself from
Damascus.
Hamas has forged closer ties with rich Gulf states that oppose the Syrian regime and seeks to undercut Iran's influence.
A planned international meeting later this week in Tunisia will seek ways to help the Syrian people.
Friends of Syria
"People don't care if it's the devil intervening to save us from Bashar. We need the world's help," Shaker said.
In
Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Alexander Lukashevich
said on Tuesday it will not attend the planned "Friends of Syria"
meeting because organisers did not invite Syrian government
representatives.
Russia and China have vetoed two UN Security
Council resolutions backing Arab League plans aimed at ending the
conflict and condemning Assad's crackdown on protests that killed 5 400
people in 2011 alone, according to the UN.
Hundreds more have been killed since, activist groups say. One of the groups puts the toll at more than 7 300.
Lukashevich
said the meeting wouldn't help a dialogue, saying that the global
community should act as friends of all the Syrian people, not just one
part.
"It looks like an attempt to forge some kind of
international coalition like it was with the setting up of a 'Contact
Group' for Libya," he said.
Iranian warships
Russia
has said it will block any UN resolution that could pave the way for a
replay of what happened in Libya. In that case, Russia abstained from a
vote, which cleared the way for months of Nato airstrikes that helped
Libyans end Muammar Gaddafi's regime.
In Jerusalem, Senator John
McCain condemned Russia and China for vetoing sanctions against Syria,
saying their action was "not the behaviour of mature nations". He
suggested that weapons should be sent to those fighting the regime.
Iran
- Syria's other strong ally - sent two warships through the Suez Canal
on Tuesday on their way back from the Syrian port of Tartus. The ships
had reportedly docked in Syria over the weekend on a mission to provide
training for Syria's naval forces, according to Iranian media reports.
The
Pentagon disputed those reports, saying there was no indication the
ships had docked or delivered any cargo. US Defence Department
spokesperson George Little said the Iranian ships now appear to be going
back through the Suez Canal again.
Assad has announced a
February 26 referendum on a new constitution. The charter would allow a
bigger role for political opposition to challenge Assad's Baath Party,
which has controlled Syria since a 1963 coup.
But leaders of the
uprising have dismissed the referendum as an attempt at superficial
reforms that do nothing to break the regime's hold on power.
In
Jordan, Bernardino Leon, the EU's representative for the Southern
Mediterranean, said Assad's regime missed the opportunity for reforms.
"Syria is definitely not in a transition despite announcements of
changes, despite plans for a referendum," Leon told reporters.
-SAPA
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