Red Crescent fails to evacuate injured reporters from Homs

A second attempt to evacuate two wounded journalists from a besieged area of the city of Homs failed Monday night when ambulances from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent left without them.

Volunteers from the local affiliate of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) were allowed to reach the Baba Amr district with the aim of removing casualties for treatment, including Paul Conroy, a British photographer working for the Sunday Times, and Edith Bouvier, a correspondent for the French newspaper Le Figaro.

Both were both wounded Wednesday during the bombardment that killed Marie Colvin of the Sunday Times, and Remi Ochlik, a French photographer. The Red Crescent also sought to recover the two bodies.

However, the ICRC said: “Neither the foreign journalists nor the bodies of the two other foreign journalists were able to be evacuated. We do not know the reason why.”

Three Syrian civilians were taken out of Baba Amr for treatment.

Last Friday, three ambulances from the Syrian Arab Red Crescent reached Baba Amr by agreement with the regime and brought seven wounded civilians out of the area. On that occasion, the ICRC said Conroy and Bouvier had “refused to be evacuated” by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent when the group “offered to take them out.”

The journalists, both of whom have suffered leg injuries, might have been worried about the impartiality of this organization’s local volunteers. Opponents of President Bashar alAssad believe the Syrian Arab Red Crescent is under the influence of the regime.

The journalists are understood to have been similarly reluctant when the organization’s volunteers contacted them Monday night, with Bouvier being particularly unwilling to leave. ICRC personnel were able to reach Homs, but not Baba Amr.

Between 20,000 and 30,000 people live in this district, which has now been under bombardment for 24 consecutive days. Many of the wounded are being treated in makeshift clinics often located in mosques or private houses. Injured people are often afraid to seek treatment from state hospitals or any organization linked to the government because they fear the security forces will arrest any patient suspected of opposing the regime.

Jacques Beres, a French surgeon who worked in a makeshift hospital in the provincial capital for two weeks, described Homs as a “ghost city” and said the area where Conroy and Bouvier were lying wounded was hell. “The difficulties are huge. We really need a truce.”

Beres, a co-founder of Medecins sans frontieres, (Doctors Without Borders), said Bouvier had been seriously injured. “It seems that she has a fractured femur. You can’t move with such a fracture. It hurts a lot, it’s dangerous,” he said.