China demands end to violence in Syria as regime blocks aid

DAMASCUS—CHINA called for an end to violence in Syria Sunday as the regime of Bashar al-assad sparked international outrage by blocking aid from reaching the battered Baba Amr flashpoint in Homs city.

As more bloodshed was reported across Syria, Britain and Turkey joined the outcry, accusing the regime of committing a crime by barring Red Cross convoys from entering Baba Amr for the second day.

China, which twice joined Russia in blocking UN Security Council resolutions against Syria’s lethal crackdown on dissent, urged all parties in Syria to “unconditionally” end the violence.

Xinhua news agency cited a foreign ministry statement attributed to an unnamed official calling for dialogue between the Syrian regime and those expressing “political aspirations.” But the official reportedly added: “We oppose anyone interfering in Syria’s internal affairs under the pretext of ‘humanitarian’ issues.”

As condemnation spiraled, the bodies of US reporter Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were flown back to Paris overnight from Damascus.

Relatives of Ochlik were there to meet his coffin as the regular Air France flight, via Amman, touched down at Charles de Gaulle airport in the French capital.

The two western journalists were killed in a rocket attack in the rebel Baba Amr neighborhood of Homs on February 22.

Colvin’s body was expected to be flown on to her native United States on Monday or Tuesday, according to a representative of her newspaper, The London Sunday Times.

French reporter Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro newspaper and British photographer Paul Conroy were wounded in the attack that killed their two colleagues.

Bouvier, 31, and photographer William Daniels, 34, who was not hurt in the rocket attack, have already been smuggled out of Homs by activists to Lebanon and on to Paris.

The pair recounted their harrowing experience from the moment Syrian rockets began hitting their makeshift media center, and said Syrian forces seemed to be directly targeting journalists in Homs.

Conroy said the bombardment of the besieged Syrian city amounted to a “medieval siege and slaughter,” and denounced the Damascus government as “murderers.” “It’s not a war, it’s a massacre, an indiscriminate massacre of men, women and children,” said Paul Conroy, 47, speaking from a hospital bed in Britain after being smuggled into Lebanon on Tuesday.

The Us-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said some 700 people were killed and thousands wounded by regime forces in a 27-day blitz on Homs, before the rebel fighters withdrew.