ICRC reaches Syrian city of Homs

The International Committee of the Red Cross said tonight it had distributed food and other aid to some neighbourhoods of the…

The International Committee of the Red Cross said tonight it had distributed food and other aid to some neighbourhoods of the battered Syrian city of Homs but could not get clearance from authorities to enter the hardest-hit district of Baba Amr.

The government was still blocking its access to the former rebel bastion, where civilians remain trapped in freezing temperatures in need of food, water and medical care, Yves Daccord, the ICRC director-general, said.

Negotiations continued with the military and government as ICRC aid workers and volunteers and ambulances from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent reached two neighbourhoods of Homs to which many families from Baba Amr had fled, a spokesman said.

Mr Daccord, in an interview with Swiss Radio and Television (RTS), said about its stalled access to Baba Amr: "At the moment we are blocked by the Syrian army and government.The negotiations are being led on site in Homs with military commanders and also in Damascus."

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Mr Daccord, referring to Baba Amr, recaptured from rebels last week after a nearly month-long siege and daily shelling by Syrian forces, said: "The situation is extremely difficult, the weather conditions are tragic. It is very cold, there is fighting and people don't have access to food or water, and above all there is a big problem of evacuating the wounded."

ICRC spokesman Hicham Hassan said ICRC and Red Crescent teams, including ambulances and a doctor, reached the two Homs neighbourhoods of al-Inshaat and al-Tawzi' al-Ijbari today.

"Al-Inshaat is the closest neighbourhood to Baba Amr. Obviously there is the resident population in need of help, as that neighbourhood was also affected by the violence, but it also hosts many families who have fled Baba Amr," he said.

In al-Inshaat, they distributed assistance to 100 families, or roughly 600 people. "Some families have begun returning to al-Inshaat after having left during the fighting," Mr Hassan said.

An ICRC convoy carrying food for "several thousand people", blankets and hygiene kits arrived in Homs from Damascus today, the second in less than a week and the fifth since February 11.

"In the past few days we have been stepping up our humanitarian operation in Syria," Mr Hassan said. There have been reports of bloody reprisals by state forces who took back the former rebel bastion last Thursday.

Mr Daccord, asked about the reports of executions committed in Baba Amr, said: "Our concern is of course linked to what you can hear and sees in Homs, but above all related to the fact that unfortunately I fear we will be faced with this conflict or let's say a situation of fighting that risks lasting for several months or even longer...and it is the civilian population who will really pay the price."

The ICRC is still pressing for a daily two-hour humanitarian ceasefire across Syria, an initiative it launched two weeks ago with both the Syrian government and opposition forces.

"Two hours is not very long but it is essential for the population simply to get access to the medicines they need, in order to rescue the wounded and to help them," Mr Daccord said."Homs is not the only place at stake, there are other places in Syria that are problematic," he said.

Meanwhile, secretly shot video footage aired today by a British television station shows what it said were Syrian patients being tortured by medical staff at a state-run hospital in Homs.

Channel 4 said it had obtained footage of shocking scenes at the military hospital in Homs, filmed covertly by an

employee and smuggled out by a French photojournalist identified only as "Mani".

"I have seen detainees being tortured by electrocution, whipping, beating with batons, and by breaking their legs. They twist the feet until the leg breaks," the employee who made the video told Mani.

"They operate without anaesthetics ... I saw them slamming detainees' heads against walls. They shackle the patients to beds. They deny them water. Others have their penises tied to stop them from urinating," the employee said.

The video, which Channel 4 said it could not independently verify, showed wounded, blindfolded men chained to beds. A rubber whip and electrical cable lay on a table in one of the wards. Some patients showed what looked like signs of having been severely beaten.

The hospital employee said some of the men were soldiers who refused to follow orders and others were civilians. The youngest was 14 years old, he said.

Opposition activists have accused Syrian forces of torture, killing civilians and other crimes but their reports are hard to verify because of government restrictions on independent media.

Reuters