24/10/12
(CNN) — (CNN) — Here are some of the latest developments Tuesday in the Syrian conflict:
Killed seeking bread: Nightmare reality for Syria’s hungry
The latest horrifying video from Syria shows yet another attack on a bakery where innocent people were just trying to buy bread.
Screaming men are seen hauling the body of a child into a taxi as other victims zip past. Mangled bodies lie alongside piles of blood-soaked bread in the grainy images posted on social media.
Col. Abdu Jabar Agadi of the rebel Free Syrian Army tells CNN Syrian troops shelled the location Tuesday in Aleppo, killing dozens, and rebels didn’t have the weapons to retaliate. “The bakery was intentionally targeted by the regime to terrorize the residents,” he said.
Syria, which continually blames violence on “terrorists,” didn’t immediately weigh in on the latest attack. On state-run media it said it had “eliminated one of the most dangerous armed terrorist groups” in Aleppo.
In the past, Syria has said its forces killed terrorists near a bakery, uncovered a terrorists’ warehouse near a bakery and found a bakery owner who was murdered by terrorists.
Human Rights Watch said in August that 10 bakeries had been bombed in Aleppo province alone. In one attack, at least 60 people died.
CNN reported on another bakery shattered last month near Aleppo, as well as one destroyed in Homs in January.
The World Food Programme says about 1.2 million people are displaced inside Syria, and about 1.5 million people will be in urgent need of food assistance over the next few months. A recent assessment, which had the help of the Syrian government, found that up to 3 million people are expected to be in need of food over the coming year.
At least 202 people were found dead in Syria on Tuesday, including 34 in Aleppo, according to the Local Coordination Committees of Syria.
The LCC claimed 100 people were killed in Damascus and its suburbs. CNN is unable to independently verify these numbers because of Syrian government restrictions and the intensity of the fighting.
Vatican puts off Syria trip because of ‘gravity of the situation’
The Vatican announced a big change of plans Tuesday: It’s not sending a delegation to Syria for now.
The trip is being postponed because of the “gravity of the situation” there, Secretary of State for the Vatican Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone said.
Last week, Bertone announced that a delegation would visit Syria this week.
“We cannot simply be spectators to this tragedy that is consuming Syria,” he said at the time. “The Holy Father has arranged it as such so that a delegation will go to Damascus in the coming days in order to express, on behalf of him and all of us: our fraternal solidarity to the entire population.”
U.N. report: Syrian refugee numbers spike
More than 274,000 Syrian refugees are living in three neighboring nations, the UNHCR, the United Nations relief agency, said Tuesday.
Nearly 102,000 of them are in Turkey, another 71,592 are in Lebanon and 58,622 more are in Jordan.
Earlier, the United Nations reported some 150,000 refugees from Syria’s civil war had settled in Lebanon and an additional 6,815 in North Africa.
