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UN stays in Homs on people's plea
[Emirates 24/7] Two UN observers set up base on Sunday in Homs, their front man said, a day after video footage showed residents pleading with them to stay and ensure an end to bloodshed in the Syrian city.

The front man, Neeraj Singh, said other members of the eight-member advance UN team of observers mandated to monitor the April 12 ceasefire were pursuing field visits elsewhere in the country.

"Yesterday (Saturday), the UN advance team visited Homs where they met with the local authorities and all the parties," Singh told AFP.

"The team drove or walked around the city of Homs and stopped at different locations to talk to the people.

"Following the visit, two UN military observers have now been stationed at Homs since yesterday evening."

On Saturday, their visit to Homs included a stop in Baba Amr, a rebel stronghold battered by a month-long army bombardment that killed hundreds, according to monitors, before it was retaken on March 1.

Video activists uploaded to YouTube showed at least four of them meeting with residents who begged them to stay in the central city. Its authenticity could not immediately be verified.

"Today is the first day since two months, exactly since 5 February... in Homs without shelling... without killing, without fire," one unidentified man said in the footage.

"Because of that, we want you to stay. Please stay. This is what we want. When you come, shelling stops. When you come, killing stops," he told the observers, who sat around a table displaying the tail ends of mortars and wore blue helmets and bullet-proof vests marked "UN".

Posted by: Fred 2012-04-24
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=343360