Leaders of Islamic nations will call for a dialogue between the Syrian opposition and government officials "not involved in oppression" to end two years of bloody civil war, a draft communique seen by Reuters on Tuesday said.
The declaration, due to be issued after a two-day summit of 56-member Islamic Conference Organization in Cairo beginning on Wednesday, does not mention President Bashar al-Asssad and holds his government primarily responsible for continued violence in Syria.
The draft denounces massacres of civilians "perpetrated by the Syrian authorities" and calls on the opposition to speed up the formation of a transitional government.
Assad has yet to respond to an initiative by opposition leader Moaz Alkhatib, who has offered to meet Assad's deputy to negotiate ways to end the bloodshed in Syria.
This as, the United Nations said that the humanitarian crisis in Syria has reached "catastrophic" proportions, with some 2.5 million people in the war-ravaged country lacking enough food.
Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said that continued fighting could push up the numbers of those affected by the fighting.
He said some 4 million people are in need of urgent assistance now while over 2 million people are displaced inside Syria. Those numbers will go up significantly if the fighting continues, he said.
Despite the world body enlisting the help of more than 70 local groups in Syria and delivering more aid to opposition-controlled areas, Laerke said that "the catastrophic humanitarian crisis continues to deepen."
The U.N. World Food Program, meanwhile, said that 2.5 million people inside Syria lack enough food. A spokeswoman for that agency, Elisabeth Byrs, said they plan to feed 1.75 million this month, then up to 2 million in March and reach 2.5 million in April.
Speaking to reporters from Damascus, Elizabeth Hoff, the U.N. World Health Organization's representative for Syria, told of seeing out her window "black smoke from every corner of the city" and difficulties in reaching rural areas of the capital.
"When we talk about 4 million people who are critically in need, this number is growing every day," she said. "Areas around rural Damascus cannot be reached which we reached a week ago."
Earlier, an Official source
in the General Command of the Jordanian armed forces said on Tuesday that more than
3 thousand refugees, mainly children and women, fled in the past 24 hours to
Jordan.
The source
added that the number of Syrians who fled in the past month to Jordan exceeded
50 thousand.
On the field:
The Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights reported that violent clashes erupted Tuesday between regime
forces and opposition rebels near army barracks west of Aleppo.
The
observatory added that the Syrian Army is enhancing security measures
in Khanaser in Aleppo's Reef after reclaiming control of the town on
Monday.
In Hamat, Syrian warplanes are shelling the town of Karnaz amid violent clashes on the outskirts.
Meanwhile, the Syrian Army is conducting air-strikes in Damascus Reef, Douma, Daraya and southern Damascus.
LBCI/AP