Thousands of Syrians marched on Friday to test the regime's commitment to a UN-backed peace plan, and the fragile two-day old ceasefire was again shaken when security forces killed five civilians. The hard-won truce to end a 13-month crackdown on dissent that has cost an estimated more than 10,000 lives appeared to be holding, but French President Nicolas Sarkozy said he did not expect it to last.
He questioned President Bashar al-Assad's sincerity and appealed for observers to monitor his compliance. UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan, who brokered the ceasefire, urged Syria to allow humanitarian access to deliver aid. "Mr Annan is aware that we don't have a perfect situation in the country at the moment," his spokesman Ahmad Fawzi said. "There are detainees that need to be released," Fawzi said, and "humanitarian access" is needed. Protesters rallied in the Qadam and Assali districts of Damascus, while other demonstrations took place in Irbin and Bibla outside the capital, according to videos posted on the Internet.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said demonstrations were organised across the country, with tens of thousands taking to the street, mostly after the main weekly Muslim prayers. "The numbers this time are higher than previous weeks," said Rami Abdel Rahman, the head of the Observatory. Sporadic clashes broke out between troops and rebels at Khirbet al-Joz on the northern border with Turkey, the Observatory said.
Violence on Thursday killed at least 10 people, including seven civilians, and wounded dozens more. Among the dead were two soldiers killed by rebels after forces loyal to Assad attempted to break up a demonstration in the central province of Hama. Even so, the toll is markedly lower than in recent weeks, when there have often been scores of people killed on a daily basis. On Friday, security forces killed one man when they opened fire at a group joining a demonstration in Assi Square, in Hama, the Observatory said.
Regime forces also killed a man in the town of Salqin, in Idlib province, the centre added. After the ceasefire came into force at dawn on Thursday, Annan declared he was "encouraged by reports that the situation in Syria is relatively calm and that the cessation of hostilities appears to be holding." But as Assad's government and the rebels traded accusations of trying to wreck the ceasefire, Annan insisted "all parties have obligations to implement fully the six-point plan."
In Turkey, which is hosting around 25,000 Syrian refugees, Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said international aid has begun to arrive. "We will start getting international aid, and in fact we have already started," he told reporters in Istanbul. The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) this week sent 1,500 tents and 1,500 blankets to Turkey, diplomatic sources told AFP.
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