BEIRUT — A wounded British photographer who had been trapped in the besieged Syrian city of Homs was spirited safely into Lebanon on Tuesday, during a risky journey that killed 13 rebels helping him escape the relentless shelling and gunfire.
A Syrian diplomat stormed out of an emergency U.N. meeting amid renewed calls for a cease-fire to deliver humanitarian aid. A top human-rights official said a U.N. panel’s report concluded that members of the Damascus regime were responsible for “crimes against humanity.”
The United Nations said the death toll in the 11-month uprising against authoritarian President Bashar Assad was well over 7,500, and activists reported more than 250 dead in the past two days — mostly from government shelling in Homs and Hama province.
Tunisia’s president was the first to offer the Syrian leader asylum as part of a negotiated peace — an offer Assad will almost surely refuse.
Hundreds have been killed in Homs, parts of which the army has surrounded and shelled daily for more than three weeks.
Many have died while venturing outside to forage for food, and activists have posted videos online of homes reduced to rubble and alleyways rendered kill zones by snipers.
British photographer Paul Conroy’s escape was the first sign of relief for a group of Western journalists who sneaked into Syria illegally and reached the embattled Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr, only to find themselves trapped. Government rockets bombarded the makeshift media center they shared with activists last week, killing two of them and injuring Conroy and French reporter Edith Bouvier.
Conroy, 47, crossed into neighboring Lebanon after leaving Homs on Sunday evening, according to the global activist group Avaaz, which said it organized the evacuation with local protesters.
The group said 35 Syrians volunteered to help get journalists out, and 13 were killed trying.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy retracted a statement that Bouvier also made it to Lebanon. “It is not confirmed that Madame Bouvier is today safe in Lebanon,” he said.
The journalists believed to still be in the neighborhood are Frenchman William Daniels and Spaniard Javier Espinosa.
The bodies of American Marie Colvin and French photographer Remi Ochlik, who were killed last week, are thought to be in the neighborhood.
