UN's humanitarian chief visits battered Baba Amr

THE UN’s humanitarian chief Valerie Amos yesterday entered the battered Baba Amr district of Homs, accompanied by a team from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, which had been waiting to gain access since rebels pulled out last Friday. The immediate objective of the mission was to assess the needs of civilians still there.

Opposition activists had claimed the army was blocking entry while carrying out reprisals against residents. However, the military argued it was making the area safe by clearing mines and booby traps planted by rebels.

Red Crescent spokesman Hicham Hassan said: “The Syrian Arab Red Crescent stayed inside Baba Amr for about 45 minutes. They found that most inhabitants had left Baba Amr for areas that have already been visited by the ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent in the past week.”

On her arrival in Damascus, Ms Amos, who was refused entry to Syria last week, met foreign minister Walid Muallem. He pledged co-operation with her mission to secure unhindered access for aid workers to evacuate the wounded and deliver supplies.

Mr Muallem said Syria was striving to provide food and medical assistance in spite of “the burden it faces because of sanctions imposed by some western and Arab nations”.

China’s envoy Li Huaxin, also in Damascus, reiterated Beijing’s rejection of external interference in Syria’s affairs while Alexy Puskov, chairman of the Duma’s foreign affairs committee, said Moscow could not accept any UN resolution that called for a government ceasefire without demanding the same from armed rebels.

It is unlikely, therefore, that China and Russia will accept a new US draft Security Council resolution that demands “unhindered humanitarian access” because it also “condemns the continued widespread, systematic and gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities and demands that the Syrian government immediately put an end to such violations.”

Although the draft calls on rebels to “refrain from all violence” once these demands are met, Russia and China could press for a call to all sides to observe a simultaneous cessation of hostilities.

President Bashar al-Assad has reiterated the charge that rebels are being armed and financed from abroad.

An assessment by the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies says Syria’s “descent into civil war seems unstoppable”.

The institute says the government’s “security campaign . . . is unlikely to deliver outright victory” while the rebels are neither “co-ordinated nor powerful enough to weaken the regime decisively” and the international community remains reluctant to intervene.

Thus the “balance remains in the government’s favour”, although its hold on power is eroding.

US president Barack Obama meanwhile has dismissed calls from senior Republican figures for unilateral US military intervention in Syria. He said there was no comparison between the situation in Syria and that in Libya, where the international community took action.