Syrian forces yesterday bombarded the city of Rastan for a second straight day, monitors said, as former UN chief Kofi Annan and other world envoys prepared a diplomatic drive to end the bloodshed in Syria.
UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, meanwhile, said Syria had finally approved a visit, which she would make from tomorrow to Friday, following widespread complaints about President Bashar al-Assad’s refusal to let her in.
And the Red Cross negotiated for a fourth day with Syrian authorities to be allowed to deliver aid and evacuate the wounded from the battered Baba Amr rebel district of the city of Homs in central Syria.
Rastan, which activists expect to be the next target of a drive by regime forces to expel rebels who have regrouped from Homs, 20 kilometres away, came under renewed shelling, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
It said seven civilians, including four children, were killed on Sunday in shelling of the city, which like Homs sits on the main highway linking Damascus to northern Syria.
Yesterday, security forces killed at least six people across the country, including two teenagers, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory.
In Cairo, Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi told reporters that Mr Annan, who has been named special envoy to Syria for the UN and League, is to travel to Damascus on Saturday.
He will be accompanied by his deputy, former Palestinian foreign minister Nasser al-Qudwa, a nephew of Yasser Arafat, on their first trip to Syria, where state media said Damascus welcomed the mission.
Mr Annan and Mr Qudwa are due to arrive tomorrow in Cairo where the pan-Arab organisation is based and to hold talks with Arabi on Thursday before flying to Damascus on Saturday, the League chief said.
The two envoys are to serve under a mandate set out by a UN General Assembly resolution passed last month and Arab League resolutions on the crisis in Syria.
The General Assembly resolution demands that Damascus “cease all violence and protect its population,” free everyone detained in connection with the unrest, withdraw troops from urban areas and guarantee freedom of demonstration.