BEIRUT
- Food and water are running dangerously low in the besieged Syrian
city of Homs, with frantic cries for help from residents amid government
shelling that pounded rebel strongholds and killed at least 30 people
Tuesday, activists said.
Shells reportedly rained down on
rebellious districts at a rate of 10 per minute at one point and the Red
Cross called for a daily two-hour cease-fire so that it can deliver
emergency aid to the wounded and sick.
"If they don't die in the
shelling, they will die of hunger," activist and resident Omar Shaker
told The Associated Press after hours of intense shelling concentrated
on the rebel-held neighbourhood of Baba Amr that the opposition has
extolled as a symbol of their 11-month uprising against President Bashar
Assad's regime.
Another 33 people were killed in northern Syria's
mountainous Jabal al-Zawiya region when government forces raided a town
in pursuit of regime opponents, raising Tuesday's overall death toll to
63, activists said. The Local Coordination Committees, an opposition
group, said more than 100 were killed Tuesday, but the report could not
immediately be confirmed by others.
Russia, one of Assad's
remaining allies, urged the United Nations to send a special envoy to
Syria to help co-ordinate security issues and delivery of humanitarian
assistance.
Assad's forces showed no sign of easing their assault
on Homs, Syria's third-largest city, whose defiance has become an
embarrassing counterpoint to the regime's insistence that the opposition
is mostly armed factions with limited public support.
The rebel
defences in Homs are believed to be bolstered by hundreds of military
defectors, which has possibly complicated attempts by Syrian troops to
stage an offensive. On Monday, reinforcements of Syrian tanks and
soldiers massed outside the city in what could be a prelude to a ground
attack.
"Government troops have been unable to advance because of
stiff resistance from defectors inside," an activist in Homs told the AP
on condition of anonymity, because of fears of government reprisal.
Another activist in Homs said the shelling started after repeated
attempts by troops to storm the edges of Baba Amr, which the opposition
has dubbed "Syria's Misrata" after the Libyan city that refused to fall
to withering government attacks last year.
One Homs resident,
communicating with the AP by Internet chat, said many people are unable
or too scared to go to the hospital for treatment. Some are bleeding to
death at home.
"My cousin is a doctor and he said they've given up
on treating serious wounds. The numbers are too many to cope with
especially with so little supplies," said the resident, who has provided
reliable information in the past. The resident spoke on condition of
anonymity because of the fear of reprisal.
The resident, who lives
just outside Baba Amr, said people in the neighbourhood were surviving
mostly on stocks of rice and canned corn and tuna, but those supplies
also were running out fast after several weeks of attacks.
Some
people go without bread for days, and when grocery stores and bakeries
reopen during a lull in the shelling, long lines form quickly, the
resident said, adding that shortages exist of all kinds of foodstuffs
and vegetables.
The Red Cross said it has been negotiating with
Syrian authorities and members of the opposition to agree a temporary
cease-fire so emergency aid can reach beleaguered parts of the country.
"The
current situation requires an immediate decision to implement a
humanitarian pause in the fighting," said Jakob Kellenberger, the
president of the Geneva-based International Committee of the Red Cross.
"In Homs and in other affected areas, entire families have been stuck
for days in their homes, unable to step outside to get bread, other food
or water, or to obtain medical care."
Kellenberger said the
cease-fire should last at least two hours daily, so that Red Cross staff
and Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers have enough time to deliver aid
and evacuate the wounded.
Beatrice Megevand-Roggo, the ICRC's
head of operations for the Middle East, described Homs as "sort of a
ghost city," adding that other parts of Syria also were badly affected
by the fighting.
White House spokesman Jay Carney backed a Red Cross call for a daily cease-fire in Syria in order to deliver humanitarian aid.
"The
reprehensible actions perpetrated by the Syrian regime, the brutal
violence perpetrated by the Syrian leader against his own people, has
led us to this situation where basic supplies, humanitarian supplies are
very scarce and therefore action needs to be taken," Carney said.
U.S.
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said Washington was
focused on "increasing the international isolation and the international
pressure on the Assad regime to stop the violence altogether, so that
we can move on to a democratic transition."
In the northern
province of Aleppo, the government said a Syrian businessman, Mahmoud
Ramadan, was shot to death in front of his home in what appeared to be
the latest in a series of targeted killings. The attacks, which include
the slaying of an Aleppo city council member Saturday, suggest that
rebel factions are increasing turning to arms to strike back at members
of Assad's ruling system.
Residents and activists say a monthslong
siege and stepped up attacks on Baba Amr recently have left the
district without enough food, water, medicine and electricity.
"They
bombed all the water tanks on the roofs of buildings. There's no water.
Some people have gone without bread for days," said Shaker, who
estimated the shells fell at a rate of about 10 per minute at some
points in the attack. More than 200 people were wounded, he said, adding
that two children were among the dead.
Phone lines with Homs have been cut, making it difficult to get firsthand accounts from residents.
One
amateur video posted on the Internet showed thick smoke and shells
slamming behind a building in Baba Amr. Another showed a shop on the
ground floor of a building on fire as a narrator cries: "We are dying.
Where are the Arabs?"
The Arab League has tried to pressure Assad into a peace process with the opposition, but he has refused.
In
another possible shift away from Assad, about 500 Palestinians gathered
in Gaza at a Hamas-authorized demonstration in solidarity with Syrian
protesters.
Assad has long hosted and supported leaders of the
Islamic Hamas movement, which rules Gaza. But as the body count in Syria
continues to rise, Hamas has been trying to distance itself from
Damascus. Hamas has forged closer ties with rich Gulf states that oppose
the Syrian regime and seeks to undercut Iran's influence.
A planned international meeting later this week in Tunisia will seek ways to help the Syrian people.
"People don't care if it's the devil intervening to save us from Bashar. We need the world's help," Shaker said.
In
Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said
Tuesday it will not attend the planned "Friends of Syria" meeting
because organizers did not invite Syrian government representatives.
Russia
and China have vetoed two U.N. Security Council resolutions backing
Arab League plans aimed at ending the conflict and condemning Assad's
crackdown on protests that killed 5,400 people in 2011 alone, according
to the U.N. Hundreds more have been killed since, activist groups say.
One of the groups puts the toll at more than 7,300.
Lukashevich
said the meeting wouldn't help a dialogue, saying that the global
community should act as friends of all the Syrian people, not just one
part.
"It looks like an attempt to forge some kind of
international coalition like it was with the setting up of a 'Contact
Group' for Libya," he said.
Russia has said it will block any U.N.
resolution that could pave the way for a replay of what happened in
Libya. In that case, Russia abstained from a vote, which cleared the way
for months of NATO airstrikes that helped Libyans end Moammar Gadhafi's
regime.
In Jerusalem, Sen. John McCain condemned Russia and China
for vetoing sanctions against Syria, saying their action was "not the
behaviour of mature nations." He suggested that weapons should be sent
to those fighting the regime.
Iran — Syria's other strong ally —
sent two warships through the Suez Canal on Tuesday on their way back
from the Syrian port of Tartus. The ships had reportedly docked in Syria
over the weekend on a mission to provide training for Syria's naval
forces, according to Iranian media reports.
The Pentagon disputed
those reports, saying there was no indication the ships had docked or
delivered any cargo. U.S. Defence Department spokesman George Little
said the Iranian ships now appear to be going back through the Suez
Canal again.
Assad has announced a Feb. 26 referendum on a new
constitution. The charter would allow a bigger role for political
opposition to challenge Assad's Baath Party, which has controlled Syria
since a 1963 coup. But leaders of the uprising have dismissed the
referendum as an attempt at superficial reforms that do nothing to break
the regime's hold on power.
In Jordan, Bernardino Leon, the EU's
representative for the Southern Mediterranean, said Assad's regime
missed the opportunity for reforms. "Syria is definitely not in a
transition despite announcements of changes, despite plans for a
referendum," Leon told reporters.
Associated Press
writers Frank Jordans in Geneva, Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, and
Bradley Klapper and Julie Pace in Washington contributed to this report.