Journalists Bouvier, Conroy in Lebanon: officials

BEIRUT: Wounded journalists Edith Bouvier of France and Paul Conroy of the United Kingdom have been smuggled out of the besieged city of Homs into Lebanon, Lebanese officials told The Daily Star Tuesday.

“We can now confirm that the injured British journalist Paul Conroy is safely in Lebanon, where he is receiving full consular assistance from our embassy,” a statement from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said.

Government officials told The Daily Star that both Bouvier, of French Le Figaro, and Conroy, of London’s Sunday Times, were in Lebanon after having been transported from Syria.

British Ambassador to Lebanon Tom Fletcher said the embassy was looking after Conroy since Tuesday morning.

“Thank you for messages about injured Brit journalist Paul Conroy. We have been looking after him since this morning. He is doing well,” Fletcher posted on Twitter.

Conroy and Bouvier were among several journalists trapped in Homs’ neighborhood of Baba Amro where U.S. journalist Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik were killed during shelling last week.

The Syrian government has launched a fierce military campaign on Homs, a Syrian-opposition stronghold, since early February. Activists said Tuesday some 144 people were killed over night.

The U.N.’s human rights chief said Tuesday that the situation in Syria has deteriorated rapidly in recent weeks and demanded an immediate humanitarian cease-fire.

Pillay told an urgent meeting of the U.N. Human Rights Council that “hundreds of people have reportedly been killed since the start of this latest assault in the beginning of February 2012.”

Foreign diplomats have been working on evacuating wounded journalists as well as the bodies of Colvin and Ochlik.