Syrian authorities blocking access to needy in Homs - Red Cross
Syrian authorities are blocking access to the old city of Homs, where
trapped civilians are in dire need of food and medical supplies, the Red
Cross said on Wednesday.
"We have been trying for close to 20 days now to bring medical supplies
and other aid to the old city of Homs," Magne Barth, head of the
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegation in Syria,
said in a statement.
"Despite lengthy negotiations with both sides, and three trips back and
forth between Damascus and Homs, we have still not received the go-ahead
from the Syrian authorities," he said.
This as Russia accused the United States of stalling chances for peace
in Syria by pressing ahead with plans to arm rebels fighting to oust
President Bashar al-Assad.
Russia is at loggerheads over the conflict with its U.N. Security
Council partner, the United States, where President Barack Obama can now
move forward with arming rebels after easing some congressional
concerns.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told a press conference that
Washington's plans would undermine joint efforts to organize an
international peace conference on Syria that he agreed to with his U.S.
counterpart, John Kerry, in May.
Earlier, a UN delegation tasked with investigating chemical weapons
allegations in Syria has arrived in Damascus on the first such trip.
Swedish chemical weapons expert Ake Sellstrom and UN disarmament chief
Angela Kane arrived Wednesday from neighboring Lebanon.
The Syrian government has invited them to visit Damascus for talks on
the terms of a possible UN investigation.
The Syrian regime and the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar
Assad accuse each other of using chemical agents in a March 19 incident
in the village of Khan al-Assal on the edge of the northern city of
Aleppo.
The government has asked the UN to investigate the Khan al-Assal
incident, but refused to have a possible inquiry include other alleged
chemical attack sites in the central city of Homs, Damascus and
elsewhere.
On the field:
Rebels attacked a convoy of trucks and buses in northern Syria,
activists said on Wednesday, after Islamist militants had warned they
would target all vehicles on the road to stop the army from using its
only remaining route to Aleppo.
One woman was killed and 19 people were wounded, some critically,
according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an anti-Assad
monitoring group based in Britain.
The hardline Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham uploaded video footage
of the attack onto YouTube on Tuesday. It shows rebels firing artillery
and mortars from a barren hillside and several trucks on fire. There is
no return fire from the convoy of around 30 vehicles on the road between
Salamiyeh, east of the central city of Homs, and Aleppo, Syria's
largest city.
The road is the army's only route to the embattled city of Aleppo, with
the rest blocked by rebels, the Observatory's director, Rami
Abdelrahman, said by telephone.
REUTERS/AP