Aid reaches Homs as attacks on rebels continue

Syrian artillery pounded the rebel city of Rastan yesterday, killing seven civilians, monitors said.

The Red Cross delivered aid to refugees from the battered Homs quarter of Baba Amr but remained barred from the district itself.

For a third straight day, relief agencies were denied entry to Baba Amr, where hundreds of people have been killed and even more wounded in an almost month-long blitz.

The shelling of nearby Rastan came despite a call from China on all parties to “unconditionally” end the violence.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 11 people were killed across Syria yesterday, including seven who died when a rocket hit a Rastan house. Four children were among the dead.

An air force intelligence building at Harasta in Damascus province was also attacked by rocket-propelled grenades.

On Feb 5, rebels declared Rastan “liberated” from President Bashar al-Assad’s control, but since Homs was overrun by regime forces on Thursday, army deserters have been braced for an onslaught on Rastan and Qusayr, also near Homs.

Meanwhile 35 Syrians from Qusayr fled to northern Lebanon yesterday, a spokesman for Syrian refugees told AFP.

The UN’s refugee agency said up to 2,000 Syrians had fled to Lebanon.

Rebels withdrew from Baba Amr in Homs on Thursday in the face of a ground assault by regime forces after a bombardment the US-based Human Rights Watch said killed some 700 people.

The group said shells sometimes fell in Baba Amr at a rate of 100 an hour, and that satellite images showed 640 buildings visibly damaged.

The International Committee of the Red Cross said it delivered relief supplies to refugees from Baba Amr in a nearby village yesterday as Syria continued to deny the agency access to the devastated district.

The UN says Syrian security forces have killed more than 7,500 civilians since the revolt against Assad began in March last year.

Meanwhile, the body of a Sunday Times journalist killed in Syria has been flown to Paris. Poland’s foreign ministry said the body of Marie Colvin, along with that of French photographer Remi Ochlik, left late on Saturday night.