U.N. Humanitarian Team Begins Mission in Syria

A United Nations humanitarian team visited Syria on Sunday, as the International Committee of the Red Cross expressed hopes its delegates would soon visit Syrians jailed since the start of the protests.

The U.N. mission began its first full day in Damascus on Sunday, arriving the previous evening to assess humanitarian needs in the wake of the crackdown which have left more than 2,000 people dead.

The team, led by the head of the Geneva bureau of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Rashid Khalikov, began its mission and will stay until August 25, said OCHA spokeswoman Elisabeth Byrs.

Speaking on the telephone from Geneva, she said the mission's objectives were "to see how the U.N. can support public services and how it can respond to possible humanitarian needs," such as electricity, drinking water, communications and health.

The visit comes after 34 anti-regime protesters were killed on Friday by security forces as anti-regime rallies gripped the country after weekly Muslim prayers, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It said about half of the deaths were in Homs province, where tanks rumbled into the central city of the same name on Saturday.

Meanwhile, the International Committee of the Red Cross expressed hopes its delegates would soon visit Syrians jailed since the start of the protests.

"There have been discussions with the authorities and we are confident that we will be able to start the visits very soon," Red Cross spokesman Saleh Dabbakeh told Agence France Presse in the Syrian capital without elaborating.

Rights groups say that more than 10,000 people are behind bars in Syria, which has been gripped by almost daily anti-regime protests since mid-March.

The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, said Friday that there was now "evidence" of "crimes against humanity" committed in Syria, calling on the Security Council to seize the international justice.