The United Nations has deployed more than 200 unarmed observers to Syria who are monitoring a month-old cease-fire that appears to be in jeopardy of collapse. Increasingly, the U.N. monitors are getting caught up in the violence.
Bodies are piling up in Syria while President Bashar al-Assad sits entrenched in his palace, but the international powers say there is no alternative to UN observers watching a non-existent ceasefire.
Creating aid corridors in Syria to protect civilians from government troops or considering air attacks on President Bashar al-Assad’s forces would be “premature, to say the least,” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice said yesterday.
The massacre of more than 100 people in a Syrian village could be a watershed for President Bashar al-Assad and UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan, with the latter's credibility at stake.
The United Nations suspended its monitoring mission in Syria on Saturday, a day after the chief observer there warned that spiraling bloodshed was hindering the ability of his team to fulfill its obligations.
Syria would face United Nations sanctions under a Security Council resolution drafted by Western powers seeking to overcome Russian resistance to measures that would hasten the fall of President Bashar al-Assad.
UN Observers Face Daunting Challenges in Syria
The United Nations has deployed more than 200 unarmed observers to Syria who are monitoring a month-old cease-fire that appears to be in jeopardy of collapse. Increasingly, the U.N. monitors are getting caught up in the violence.
Read the full Voice of America article here.