Syria said today it was trying to evacuate civilians from the city of Homs and blamed rebel fighters for obstructing efforts to get people out safely.
Activists said the army has intensified shelling of residential districts of Homs, centre of the revolt against president Bashar al-Assad, and the head of United Nations monitors in Syria, General Robert Mood, said he was worried about civilians trapped there.
Residents say Syria's third largest city has been surrounded by the army and pummelled by mortar and artillery fire almost daily since early June.
Tens of thousands of people have already fled to other cities to escape months of bombardment and street fighting.
"Contacts have been made with the leadership of the international monitors, in cooperation with the local Syrian authorities in the city of Homs to bring out these Syrian citizens," Syria's foreign ministry said.
"But the efforts of the monitors were unsuccessful....because the armed terrorist groups obstructed their efforts," it said, using a label Damascus employs to describe rebels who have joined the 15-month uprising and seek to topple Assad by force.It accused the rebels of using civilians as "human shields".
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday around 1,0000 families were surrounded in Homs and under fire from the army and security forces. Dozens of wounded people were in danger because of a lack of medical equipment, it said.
The British-based Observatory's director, Rami Abdelrahman, quoted rebel fighters as saying authorities had passed a message through the United Nations, offering them a possible deal if they surrendered their weapons and gave themselves up, but had not discussed evacuating families.
The Observatory said intermittent shelling of several district of Homs continued today and one soldier was killed in clashes between the army and rebels.
Reuters