Syria Crisis: Trapped Civilians Must Be Evacuated - UN
The head of UN observers in Syria has urged warring parties to allow the evacuation of women, children, elderly and injured people from conflict zones.
Gen Robert Mood also admitted that “attempts to extract civilians” from the besieged city of Homs over the past week had been unsuccessful.
Homs has reportedly been under heavy bombardment from government forces.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said over 1,000 families in Homs need to be evacuated.
The Observatory said at least one person had died in Sunday’s violence in Homs’ Khalidiyeh district, and that 10 other deaths had been reported elsewhere in the country.
Massacre warning
In a statement, Gen Mood, the head of the UN Supervision Mission in Syria (UNSMIS), said that both troops of President Bashar al-Assad and rebel fighters “must reconsider their position and allow women, children, the elderly and the injured to leave conflict zones without any preconditions and ensure their safety”.