Red Cross Live Blog

The president of the International Red Cross, Jakob Kellenberger, is headed to Moscow for talks on the humanitarian situation in Syria, the ICRC said on Sunday.

"Mr Kellenberger will pay a one-day visit during which he will meet Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov" on Monday, the International Committee for the Red Cross said in a statement.

"Mr Kellenberger is going to Moscow to share the ICRC's concerns about the humanitarian situation in Syria and to review the work being done by the ICRC and the Syrian Red Crescent since the start of the unrest" a year ago, it said.

"The humanitarian situation in Homs, Idlib, Hama, Deraa and other areas affected by the unrest remains extremely difficult and may get even worse. 

People have been suffering for many months in some areas, especially women and children," Kellenberger said in the statement.

"A daily ceasefire of at least two hours is imperative to allow the evacuation of the wounded," he added, urging "an unambiguous commitment by all parties concerned ... to end the fighting" so that aid workers "can help people who are cruelly in need."

Kellenberger first travelled to Syria in June last year, followed by a trip in September when he met with President Bashar al-Assad.

Since then there has been "regular dialogue" with Syrian authorities and opposition members, both in Syria and abroad, the ICRC said.

The ICRC and the Syrian Red Crescent have supplied food, medicine and other essential items to thousands of people.

Monitors say the brutal crackdown on dissent has cost more than 9,100 lives. [Reuters]

The International Committee of the Red Cross said on Monday that it is still awaiting permission from the Syrian authorities to enter Baba Amr, the rebellious district of Homs overrun last week by regime forces.

"Negotiations are still ongoing," ICRC spokesman Saleh Dabbakeh told AFP.

Rebel fighters fled the neighbourhood on Thursday in the face of a ground assault by regime forces following a month-long shelling blitz which the US-based Human Rights Watch said had killed some 700 people.

A seven-truck aid convoy has been waiting since Friday to enter Baba Amr which fleeing residents say is facing an acute humanitarian crisis. [AFP]

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Saturday it had been unable to enter the besieged Bab Amr district of Homs after a day of talks with Syrian authorities and opposition groups in the city.

The ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent have been negotiating with the Syrian authorities and opposition groups in Homs since this morning. However, negotiations led to no concrete results," Hisham Hassan, an ICRC spokesman, said.

"Unfortunately we will not be able to enter Baba Amro today. We continue our negotiations, hoping that tomorrow (Sunday) we will be able to enter Baba Amro to carry out our life saving operations.

"The Syrian Arab Red Crescent continues to carry out evacuations of wounded persons in other affected areas of Syria today and they carried out two evacuations in neighbourhoods in Homs other than Baba Amro".

A Red Cross team has evacuated 27 people from Bab Amr, a besieged neighbourhood in Homs, but it is unclear whether wounded Western journalists were among them, spokesman Hicham Hassan told the Associated Press.

French journalist Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro and British photographer Paul Conroy of the Sunday Times had earlier asked for help leaving Bab Amr after being injured during government shelling that hit a building used as an opposition media centre.

Rebels said Bouvier and Conroy refused to leave, while the Syrian Foreign Ministry said armed groups were refusing to hand them over.

French photographer Remi Ochlik and American freelance journalist Marie Colvin, who was on assignment for the Sunday Times, were killed during the shelling. French photographer William Daniels and Spanish journalist Javier Espinosa were present but unhurt. 

A local activist told the Associated Press that the remaining journalists refused to leave because the Syrian Red Crescent, which was the organisation that entered Bab Amr, was not trusted, and they did not want to deliver the bodies of the dead journalists to the regime.