UN aid chief visits Syria's stricken Baba Amr

DAMASCUS - The visiting UN under-secretary general for humanitarian affairs, Valerie Amos, entered the restive Baba Amr neighborhood in Syria's central Homs province Wednesday with representatives of the Syrian Red Crescent, an official told Xinhua.

Amos, who arrived in Syria late Tuesday, made an "assessment visit" to the focal point neighborhood of Baba Amr, Khalid Ariksusi, head of the operation section in the Syrian Red Crescent, told Xinhua Sunday.

"The visit was for assessing the situation there and we didn't distribute aid in Baba Amr today," said Ariksusi, adding that "Baba Amr is still largely abandoned by its residents."

He said that the organization distributed aid to displaced residents of Baba Amr who fled to nearby neighborhoods in Homs.

Ariksusi said that Amos will meet Thursday with Abdul-Rahman al- Attar, head of Syria's Red Crescent organization.

Meanwhile, Saleh Dabbakeh, spokesman of the international Red Cross in Syria, told Xinhua that teams from the Red Cross and Red Crescent entered for the second time Wednesday the Abil town in Homs and distributed relief aid to around 450 families that were displaced from Baba Amr.

He said the Red Crescent entered Baba Amr Wednesday and stayed for around 40 minutes with Amos.

Amos arrived in the Syrian capital of Damascus after midnight Tuesday and held talks Wednesday with Syria's Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem before heading to Homs, during which al-Moallem reiterated Syria's commitment to cooperate with Amos' mission to Syria, "so long as it respects Syria's sovereignty and independency."

For her side, Amos pointed out that the aim of her visit is to assess humanitarian conditions in Syria "in order to see what the UN could do to supply citizens with basic needs," according to official SANA news agency.

Amos also confirmed her commitment to international criteria pertaining to humanitarian aid, mainly independency and evenhandedness, emphasizing her respect of Syria's sovereignty and rejection to use "humanitarian dimension for political purposed."

Amos' three-day visit to Syria meant to convince the authorities of allowing unhindered humanitarian access to restive Syrian cities, mainly Homs.

Baba Amr has emerged as the epicenter of armed confrontation between troops loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and armed rebels comprising partly of army defectors.

Activists said Baba Amr has been under the army's bombardment for nearly a month, and hundreds of people have been killed in the area since February 4, when the Syrian army started its assault on "armed groups."

The government said it was fighting armed terrorist groups and al-Qaida members, who have reportedly infiltrated into Syria to fight alongside the rebels.

Syrian government said some of the alleged gunmen it has long blamed for killing and torturing policemen, army men and security forces and other civilians, were killed while some others fled the area. An unidentified number of the gunmen have turned themselves in to specialized authorities.

Following the seizure of Baba Amr, the Syrian official TV screened footage showing the size of destruction caused to the area allegedly by the gunmen, and the flats the gunmen were using to torture and kill people.