The Sydney Morning Herald reports. THE United Nations said a humanitarian mission would go to Syria this weekend as European powers launched a campaign for UN Security Council sanctions against President Bashar al-Assad.UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos announced the much delayed mission after a Security Council briefing that was told of a shoot-to-kill policy against protesters, stadium executions and children feared killed in Syrian government custody.
The civilian death toll from protests that erupted in mid-March has now passed 2000, UN under-secretary-general Lynn Pascoe told the 15-nation body. President Assad promised UN chief Ban Ki-moon in May that a UN humanitarian team could go to protest towns. His government has since blocked the mission.But Baroness Amos told reporters: ''We have been guaranteed that we will have full access to where we want to go.'' The team ''will want to concentrate on those places where there have been reports of fighting'', she added.
Britain, France, Germany and Portugal said, however, that they were preparing a resolution for the Security Council that would order sanctions against the Assad government. The United States said it strongly backed the move.US President Barack Obama and European Union leaders earlier called for Mr Assad to stand down in a move to step up international pressure on the Syrian president.
Mr Assad has promised reforms that Ms Pascoe told the Security Council could not be carried out while the military assault continued.Britain's deputy UN ambassador, Philip Parham, announced the sanctions move and told reporters: ''We cannot let ourselves be strung along by talk of better times ahead.'' The measures proposed could include an assets freeze and travel ban against Syrian individuals as well as an arms embargo, Mr Parham said.It was not yet known when the resolution would be submitted.France's UN envoy, Martin Briens, said that Ms Pascoe, Baroness Amos and UN human rights chief Navi Pillay had given ''frightening'' descriptions of events in Syria.
Mrs Pillay told reporters she had presented ''useful and reliable corroborative evidence'' of a shoot-to-kill policy by the Assad government and of summary killings and disappearances.She told the council of one alleged incident in a stadium in the protest city of Daraa - where 26 blindfolded men were shot dead execution-style on May 1.Hospitals have now become a target of the military assault and some doctors were refusing to treat the injured because they feared persecution, Mrs Pillay added.She said the Security Council should refer the violence to the International Criminal Court for an investigation into possible crimes against humanity.
AFP
