Syria death toll climbs
June 17, 2012
Eleven people were killed and dozens wounded in Syria on Sunday as army shelling around Homs intensified.
"Around 85 percent of Homs is now under shelling or bombardment with mortar rounds and heavy machine guns," Abu Imad, an opposition campaigner, told news agency Reuters.
"Dozens of wounded are without treatment because all the hospitals have fallen under the control of shabbiha. The dead are the lucky ones," he said, referring to the militia, known as shabbiha, loyal to President Bashar al-Assad.
Homs has been held under siege for a week in the escalating violence that has killed scores and forced the 300-strong UN observer force to stop patrolling.
Humanitarian activists are growing more concerned over the conditions in Homs and are pushing for an evacuation of 1,000 families, as well as the injured.
"The humanitarian situation in Homs is very difficult," said Rami Abdul-Rahman, who heads the British-based activist group Syrian Observatory for Human Rights Observatory. "It is very clear that the army wants to retake Homs."
His group asked the UN on Saturday to intervene on behalf of the at-risk families and try to evacuate them.
UN forced to halt patrols
Major General Robert Mood, the chief of the observer mission in Syria, said that intensifying clashes over the past 10 days were "posing significant risks" to the unarmed observers in the country, impeding their ability to carry out their mission.
The observers have been in place since the brokering of a peace plan by international envoy Kofi Annan, but they have been put at more and more risk as government forces and rebels have increasingly ignored the truce.
The UN halt in operations is the strongest signal to date that the violence is putting the nation at risk of civil war.
Opposition groups say more than 14,000 people and rebels have been killed since the uprising against Assad's rule began in March 2011.
Responses to UN decision
The Syrian government said it told Mood the UN observers' decision was understandable and blamed rebels for the escalation in violence.
The United States, meanwhile, again called on Assad to comply with the plan and fully implement the cease-fire.
And Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague said the international community must come together and compel the regime to honor its commitments.
"The United Nations Security Council will be considering its options including the future of the U.N. Mission to Syria in light of a briefing from Major-General Mood on Tuesday," he said in a statement.
tm/jlw (Reuters, dpa, AP)