AFP
March 10, 2012 4:02AM
UN aid mission: A woman weeps as she prays during an anti-government demonstration in Idlib yesterday. The UN said 1.5 million people may need food aid in Syria. Picture: AP Source: AP
FACED with a groundswell of pressure, Syria said it was ready to allow the UN to conduct a humanitarian mission.
UN humanitarian aid chief Valerie Amos said yesterday that Syria had agreed to allow a preliminary assessment of the relief needs in areas hard hit by the year-old conflict.
Ms Amos, who toured the battered city of Homs and refugee camps in Turkey this week, also said Damascus must allow aid groups "unhindered access to evacuate the wounded and deliver desperately needed supplies".
The regime of President Bashar al-Assad has cracked down on protesters and rebel fighters over the past year in a brutal military campaign that, according to the opposition, has claimed nearly 8\500 lives.
Ms Amos, the UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs, told reporters in Ankara that "we have agreed on a joint preliminary humanitarian assessment mission to areas where people urgently need assistance".
Start of sidebar. Skip to end of sidebar.
.End of sidebar. Return to start of sidebar.
She said proposal had been submitted to the Syrian government for delivery of desperately needed humanitarian aid, and that she had asked for an urgent consideration of the matter
Currently, no UN aid agencies are allowed into Syria, and information is scarce on the details of the civilians' needs.
In Geneva, a UN spokeswoman said that 1.5 million people might be in need of food aid in Syria, according to latest available data, but that the real number would need to be evaluated from inside the country.
"We have an estimated figure of 1.5 million people potentially in need of food assistance," the spokeswoman for the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Elisabeth Byrs, told a press briefing.
Meanwhile, Syrian forces killed at least 32 civilians on the eve of a peace mission by international envoy Kofi Annan, activists said yesterday.
Also yesterday, four generals and a dozen army officers defected to a camp for army deserters in Turkey, reports said. The moves come after the deputy oil minister defected earlier this week.
On the diplomatic front Russia, one of Syria's last remaining allies with China, criticised as "unbalanced" a new US-led initiative to push through a damning UN Security Council resolution.
Moscow's latest stance comes on the eve of talks in Cairo between foreign ministers of the Arab League and their Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, on the Syria crisis.
Regime troops stormed a village in Idlib reflecting growing fears that the northwestern province will meet the same fate as the battered rebel stronghold of Baba Amr in the city of Homs.
"Troops attacked the village of Ain Larose and opened fire killing 13 civilians," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights.
He said women were among several people arrested.
The deaths came as tens of thousands of people demonstrated against the regime across the country.
Mr Annan, who has warned against further militarisation of the crisis, is due to arrive in Damascus today.
The mission would only be a "first step", Ms Amos said, insisting on the need for a more robust long-term arrangement to enable humanitarian organisations to have access to civilians caught in the bloody conflict that has left more than 8500 people dead, according to the Observatory.
Regime forces have been massing troops around Idlib for days to root out rebel fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), activists say.
Armoured units have surrounded the hilly district of Jabal al-Zawiya, where rebel fighters have been active, and there were reports that civilians were fleeing en masse.
The Observatory said the army had launched an assault Friday on four villages in the province and was hunting down rebels in the area.
"The largest number of deserters are in Jabal al-Zawiya," said Mr Abdel Rahman.
Activists fear that Idlib could suffer the same fate as the Baba Amr, which was stormed by government troops on March 1 after a month of shelling.
UN humanitarian chief Ms Amos briefly toured Baba Amr on Wednesday with a Syrian Red Crescent team.
"She says that the parts they saw were completely devastated," said her spokeswoman Amanda Pitt.
"She said Homs feels like a city that has been completely closed down."
Meanwhile tens of thousands protested across the country yesterday, namely in the northern province of Aleppo, where demonstrators called for the execution of President Bashar al-Assad, activists said.
The Observatory said demonstrations also took place in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of the uprising, in the coastal city of Latakia, in Homs, central Hama and Deir Ezzor in the east.
Mr Annan, on a joint UN-Arab League mission, has urged "the Syrian opposition to come together to work with us to find a solution that will respect the aspirations of the Syrian people."
He also warned against further militarisation of the crisis in remarks echoed by EU foreign ministers yesterday, as well as by Washington.
"I believe further militarisation will make the situation worse," Mr Annan said in Cairo this week.
"I hope that no one is very seriously thinking of using force in this situation."
German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said any talk of military intervention was "counterproductive," as several of his counterparts said the international community must stick to sanctions to pressure Damascus while simultaneously seeking humanitarian relief for civilians.
Chân thành cám ơn Quý Anh Chị ghé thăm "conbenho Nguyễn Hoài Trang Blog"
Xin được lắng nghe ý kiến chia sẻ của Quý Anh Chị trực tiếp tại Diễn Đàn Paltalk: 1Latdo Tapdoan Vietgian CSVN Phanquoc Bannuoc .
Kính chúc Sức Khỏe Quý Anh Chị .
conbenho
Tiểu Muội quantu
Nguyễn Hoài Trang
10032012
___________
CSVN là TỘI ÁC
Bao che, dung dưỡng TỘI ÁC là đồng lõa với TỘI ÁC
No comments:
Post a Comment