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29 March 2024

Talks 'under way' to evacuate wounded reporters

Published
By AFP

Talks and preparations were under way on Monday on evacuating two wounded Western reporters trapped in the besieged Baba Amr district of the Syrian city of Homs, a diplomat in Damascus said.

"The negotiations and preparations are under way, but it is extremely delicate and the process could be blocked at any moment," the diplomat told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Saleh Dabbakeh, spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Damascus, also confirmed the negotiations, shortly after French President Nicolas Sarkozy said a solution for getting the reporters out was in sight.

"We have the beginnings of a solution," Sarkozy told RTL radio. "It seems that things are starting to move."

But Sarkozy declined to provide any details, saying that the situation in Homs was "extremely tense" and that he did not have "much trust in the Syrian regime."

The ICRC has been negotiating to rescue the wounded Western journalists from Homs -- under assault by regime forces for more than three weeks -- and retrieve the bodies of two others killed there last week.

British photographer Paul Conroy and French reporter Edith Bouvier were wounded in the attack on Wednesday which claimed the lives of American war correspondent Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik.

Sarkozy called their deaths an "assassination" by the Syrian army, which he said was fully aware it was shelling a makeshift press centre, adding that those responsible should be held to account.