Hapless Syrians flee regime's mayhem for Lebanon and other neighbouring countries

The UN refugee agency says up to 2,000 Syrians have fled the unabated violence into neighbouring Lebanon while hundreds of others are still stranded at the Egyptian and Libyan borders where they have been denied access for still unexplained reasons.

• Lebanon is bracing itself for a new influx of Syrian refugees after up to 2,000 people fleeing the military onslaught in Homs were reported to be trying to reach the border.

• The exodus from Syria’s third city has intensified since loyalist forces ousted the opposition Free Syria Army from the battered Baba Amr neighbourhood on Friday. There is little information about the fate of up to 20,000 residents thought to be there when the siege began four weeks ago.

• For the third day running, the International Committee for the Red Cross was denied access to Baba Amr despite earlier assurances that it could deliver aid to residents trapped in the fighting.

• A seven-truck ICRC convoy has been waiting since Friday to enter Baba Amr, with local military authorities saying aid officials were being kept out for their own safety because of the presence of bombs and landmines, which they allege were left by opposition forces.

• Activists and Free Syria Army officials vehemently deny having booby-trapped the area and say the Al Assad regime has concocted a ploy to hide its deadly activities there.

• The lack of access has drawn international condemnation, with Turkey and Britain accusing the Damascus regime of committing grave crimes in the rebel-held neighbourhood.

• UK Prime minister David Cameron called for President Bashar Al Assad to “face a day of reckoning” in the wake of the relentless military crackdown on dissent that started a year ago.

• Opposition activists who were forced to flee the regime’s assault have accused security forces of conducting summary executions of men and boys over the age of 14 over the last three days. Heavy fighting broke out overnight between armoured forces loyal to Assad and rebels who launched co-ordinated attacks on army roadblocks across the southern city of Deraa on the border with Jordan.

• The reports of the fighting in Deraa, where the uprising against Assad’s oppressive rule began last March, could not be independently verified. But opposition sources said rebels had intensified assaults on loyalist targets in southern, north and eastern Syria in the last few days to relieve pressure in Homs.

• The Wadi Khaled region of Lebanon’s far north had until late last year been an escape route for scores of families and defectors who had fled the deteriorating situation in Homs, lying only 50km northeast of the border.
• However, regime forces laid land mines and began aggressively patrolling the area in November, closing off most exits.