Red Cross Unable to Enter Embattled Syrian Area

The Red Cross said that the Syrian government has allowed aid workers into the besieged city of Homs in Syria to deliver food and medical supplies. 

However, Jakob Kellenberger, president of the Red Cross, said in a statement that the convoy was “not allowed to enter the Bab Amro district of Homs today.” 

“It is unacceptable that people who have been in need of emergency assistance for weeks have still not received any help,” he said. “We are staying in Homs tonight in the hope of entering Baba Amro in the very near future. In addition, many families have fled Baba Amro, and we will help them as soon as we possibly can.”

The Red Cross partnered with the Syrian Red Crescent to distribute supplies and will attempt to evacuate people who were wounded during the weeks of shelling by the army.

An activist told Reuters that “the Syrian army was holding the convoy up because they want to clean up after what they have done in Baba Amro.”

“All men who remained in the neighborhood aged between 14 and 50 were arrested. We fear they will be massacred. Where is the world?” another activist told the news agency. Another activist who left the district on Friday, via Skype, said, “The massacres are continuing. They are torturing them and killing (detainees) one by one. They are executing them in batches.”

Activists with the Local Coordination Committees said at least 14 people were executed in Baba Amro, and the shelling has continued. Around five mortar shells were fired at a nearby neighborhood in Homs, with “intense gunfire accompanied by artillery and mortar rounds aimed at the city,” they said.

On Thursday, the rebel army defectors—the Syrian regime’s main target in the assault—said they would leave Baba Amro so as to not put the some 4,000 civilians living there at risk, according to reports. They also said they are outgunned and are short on ammunition.

The residents of Baba Amro’s district have been without food, electricity, gas, and other supplies since Syria began its onslaught 26 days ago.

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon stressed the urgency of getting aid into Homs.

“The images which we have seen in Syria are atrocious. It’s totally unacceptable, intolerable. How, as a human being can you bear this situation? This really troubles me. I’m deeply sad, seeing all that has happened,” Ban said in a speech on Friday, according to a transcript.

“The Syrian authorities must open, without any preconditions, to humanitarian communities … We are ready to mobilize all this. We do not have access. So that’s priority number one at this time”

“But, at the same time, all violence must stop.  Again, I’m really urging the Syrian authorities to stop the violence and allow humanitarian access.”