ICRC fails to evacuate wounded journalists from Homs

The Red Cross Saturday failed to agree a deal to evacuate wounded Syrians and Western journalists from battered Homs city as regime forces killed dozens more civilians on the eve of a constitutional referendum. President Bashar al-Assad's forces resumed shelling the Baba Amr district of Homs after an apparent pause to allow in relief teams, more than three weeks into a deadly assault on rebels in Syria's third largest city. Security forces killed at least 68 civilians nationwide, including 24 in Homs, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Twenty-three members of the regime's forces were killed across the country in clashes with army deserters siding with the rebels. Three army deserters were believed to have died in Alep and Deraa. French reporter Edith Bouvier and British photographer Paul Conroy suffered leg wounds in the attack. A Syrian official, quoted by SANA state news agency, accused Baba Amr rebels of refusing to hand over Bouvier and the bodies of the journalists to rescuers. "The concerned authorities in Homs, moved by humanitarian considerations, sent several local officials and Red Crescent ambulances to evacuate the Western journalists who entered Syria illegally," the official said. "Despite efforts that lasted several hours, armed groups in Baba Amr refused to hand over the wounded woman (Bouvier) and the two bodies, thus endangering the life of the wounded French journalist." French reporter Edith Bouvier and British photographer Paul Conroy suffered leg wounds in the attack. A Syrian official, quoted by SANA state news agency, accused Baba Amr rebels of refusing to hand over Bouvier and the bodies of the journalists to rescuers. "The concerned authorities in Homs, moved by humanitarian considerations, sent several local officials and Red Crescent ambulances to evacuate the Western journalists who entered Syria illegally," the official said. "Despite efforts that lasted several hours, armed groups in Baba Amr refused to hand over the wounded woman (Bouvier) and the two bodies, thus endangering the life of the wounded French journalist." It also called for a "political solution" to the crisis and recognised the Syrian National Council, the main opposition coalition, as "a legitimate representative of Syrians seeking peaceful democratic change." Information Minister Adnan Mahmud took a poetic swipe at the Friends of Syria meeting, calling it a gathering of the "friends of Washington and the enemies of Syria." "Participants took only one decision, to continue supporting the terrorists and furnish them with weapons to attack the security and stability of Syria," he told reporters. And China's Xinhua state news agency accused the United States and Europe of "harbouring hegemonistic ambitions" in Syria. Beijing and Moscow, which have so far frustrated efforts to rein in Assad's regime by vetoing UN Security Council resolutions against Syria, boycotted the Tunis meeting.