The UN Security Council on Wednesday agreed on a statement to boost envoy Kofi Annan’s peace bid in Syria, diplomats in New York said, as activists said the army pounded a rebel-held area of Homs city.
Syrian forces blasted the Khaldiyeh district of Homs for a second straight day, activists said, as UN chief Ban Ki-moon, on a visit to Jakarta, warned the crisis in Syria had “massive” regional repercussions.
“Khaldiyeh is being bombed, with shells and rockets, for a second day,” Hadi Abdullah of the Syrian Revolution General Commission told AFP, reached by telephone from Beirut.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group, said at least five civilians were killed and dozens wounded in the shelling, a day after 14 civilians were killed in the same district.
Abdullah said he feared a repeat of the month-long battering that killed hundreds in the Baba Amr district of Homs before the army moved in on March 1 after a withdrawal by Free Syrian Army rebels.
He said thousands of residents who fled Baba Amr and other parts of the city in central Syria had taken refuge in Khaldiyeh, “the last front left” in Homs.
Elsewhere, Syrian troops surrounded Taftanaz and opened fire on rebels in the town in Idlib province in the northwest, rebel sources said, adding outnumbered Free Syrian Army fighters withdrew.
Rebel fighters, lightly armed, have been on the retreat from cities since the start of March in the face of the far superior firepower of government forces.
Closing ranks after months of division on the year-long crisis, the Security Council, meanwhile, was to adopt its statement at 1400 GMT, a diplomat told AFP in New York.
UN chief Ban said in a speech to a defence conference in the Indonesian capital that Annan, who held talks in Damascus on March 10-11 and briefed the Security Council last week, was “working tirelessly.”
The prepared text of Ban’s speech released to media in Jakarta said Annan was expected to return soon to Damascus. The line was removed from the speech as delivered, and Ban did not give any timeframe for a return.
Martin Nesirky, a spokesman for Ban, told AFP: “The joint special envoy’s technical team is still in Damascus, and he is still waiting to hear more details from them before he decides on his travel plans.”
Ban, urging unity, told his Jakarta audience that the United Nations had three major priorities in Syria.
These were “an immediate end to the violence — all violence”, an “inclusive political dialogue” to shape the country’s future, “and thirdly we have to provide, immediately and urgently, humanitarian access”.
“We all have a responsibility to work for a resolution of this profound and extremely dangerous situation and crisis,” Ban said.
