Mortars, shots hit Homs aid convoy
The Syrian Red Crescent yesterday said vehicles delivering aid in besieged districts of the central city of Homs were fired on and that one driver was wounded.
Meanwhile the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that two residents of besieged Homs were killed in the shelling attack, and several wounded including a media activist.
"Shots fired targeting aid trucks and the team," the Red Crescent said on Twitter, without accusing anyone -- government forces or rebels -- of being responsible. It also said a Red Crescent "aid truck driver (was) injured."
"Mortar shells falling in close proximity near the team and aid trucks that moved into Old City," a second tweet said.
State news agency SANA said four Red Crescent volunteers were wounded "by gunshots fired by armed terrorist groups," as an aid convoy was entering the Old City.
The regime calls rebels trying to topple the government "terrorists".
Homs governor Talal al-Barazi said "two vehicles carrying humanitarian assistance entered the Old City," but that "terrorist groups prevented the entrance of other vehicles by firing mortar rounds on the road."
The UN was hoping to deliver aid to civilians trapped in rebel-held areas of the Old City for more than 600 days of a choking army siege, a day after evacuating dozens from there.
Activists for their part accused the regime of launching mortar and tank fire against the convoy.
Rebels said that the rounds were launched from two separate areas, one bordering the besieged neighbourhoods, the other some 200 metres (yards) away. Both areas are under regime control.
The UN and Red Crescent were poised to deliver humanitarian aid to some 3,000 people trapped in Homs since June 2012, under a UN-supervised truce agreement between the regime and the rebels.
Under the agreement, 83 civilians were evacuated Friday.
Meanwhile, new aerial bombardment from explosives-packed barrel bombs in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo killed at least 20 people yesterday.
Hundreds of people have been killed in several waves of barrel bomb assaults, each lasting several days, since December 15, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
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