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Syria blocks Red Cross into Homs

DAMASCUS — The Red Cross said on Friday that Syria had blocked an aid convoy from entering the vanquished rebel stronghold of Baba Amr, amid reports of brutal reprisals there by government forces.

Thousands of people meanwhile poured onto the streets of Damascus and the coastal city of Aleppo on Friday to urge the West to supply the rebel fighters with arms, prompting the security forces to open fire, said activists and monitors, who also reported at least 35 people killed countrywide.

International Committee of the Red Cross president Jakob Kellenberger said it was “unacceptable” that the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society were not allowed to enter Baba Amr, a neighbourhood of the central city of Homs, more than a day after getting permission to do so.

“It is unacceptable that people who have been in need of emergency assistance for weeks have still not received any help,” Kellenberger said in a statement in Geneva.

More than 20,000 civilians are believed to have been trapped in Baba Amr during a month-long bombardment by regime forces, with a lone doctor reported to be tending to the scores of casualties in a single makeshift clinic.

On the ground, volunteers said the Syrian army had prevented a convoy of seven trucks carrying food, medicines, blankets, baby milk and other supplies from going in.

One said they had been told this was because the army needed to “clear the sector of land mines and explosives left behind by rebels when they fled” on Thursday in the face of overwhelmingly superior regime fire power.

After what was called a “tactical withdrawal,” the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) warned of “barbaric” reprisals against residents.

The UN rights body appealed to Syria to respect international law after receiving unconfirmed reports of 17 “grisly” executions as regime forces took control of Baba Amr.

Rupert Colville, spokesman for the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, said information received suggested “a particularly grisly set of summary executions” on Thursday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 10 people were shot dead in Baba Amr on Friday, but its head, Rami Abdel Rahman, added: “The circumstances of their deaths are not clear.”

Another 12 people, including five children, were killed as a shell crashed into a crowd of demonstrators in Rastan, near Homs, monitors said, with 15 further deaths reported elsewhere in the country.

For his part, French President Nicolas Sarkozy said that “what is going on is scandalous. There are more than 8,000 dead, hundreds of children, and the city of Homs faces the risk of being wiped off the map.”

British Prime Minister David Cameron urged Syrians “butchering” their compatriots to turn their backs on the “criminal” Damascus regime or face justice for the blood on their hands.

He described the situation as a “scene of medieval barbarity.”

In Brussels, EU leaders “horrified” by the atrocities taking place in Syria called for those responsible to be held to account.

EU president Herman Van Rompuy said the 27 EU leaders had adopted a text stating that “the European Council remains determined to ensure that those responsible for atrocities in Syria are held accountable for their actions”.

EU leaders also pledged to tighten the noose on Assad’s regime with fresh sanctions after having agreed only last week to freeze the assets of its central bank in a 12^th round of restrictive measures since the brutal crackdown on anti-regime protests began in last March.

They also recognised the Syrian National Council as “a legitimate representative of Syrians” and issued a fresh call to UN Security Council members, particularly Russia and China, to work together to stop the violence.

The plea came as Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said long-time ally Moscow had no special relationship with the Assad regime and refused to predict that the president would stay in power.

Last month, Russia and its diplomatic ally China outraged the West by vetoing a UN Security Council resolution condemning the Assad regime for the violence that the UN says has killed more than 7,500 people.

As the situation in Baba Amr remained dire, activists had called for nationwide protests to demand the arming of the rebel Free Syrian Army (FSA) to give it the firepower to defend itself against regime forces.

“Assad, don’t delude yourself, there are a thousand and one Baba Amrs,” the “Syrian Revolution 2011” Facebook page said..

France announced it was closing its embassy in Damascus, mirroring similar moves by Britain and the United States.

The storming of the rebel bastion began early Wednesday, following 26 straight days of relentless shelling that has made the neighbourhood an icon of the nearly year-long uprising against Assad’s regime.

Meanwhile, two French journalists evacuated from Homs arrived Friday at a military airport near Paris where they were to be met by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

A plane transporting wounded reporter Edith Bouvier and photographer William Daniels arrived in Paris from Beirut after they were smuggled out of Homs.

The ICRC spokesman in Damascus, Saleh Dabbakeh, said the remains of two Western journalists killed in the February 22 rocket attack that wounded Bouvier and Williams, were being taken from Homs to the capital on Friday,

“Ambulances are currently transporting the bodies of (American reporter) Marie Colvin and (French photographer) Remi Ochlik towards Damascus,” Dabbakeh said.