UNITED NATIONS – UN-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi told the UN Security Council Monday that the Syrian civil war is worsening and the country faces a growing food crisis, envoys said. The former Algerian foreign minister, who reported on his recent talks with President Bashar Al-Assad in Damascus, painted an increasingly grim picture of the 18-month-old conflict in which activists say more than 29,000 people have died. Brahimi told the Council that the torture of detainees has become “routine” and that people were now afraid to go to hospitals which were in the hands of government forces. The envoy estimated that 1.5 million people have now fled their homes and said Syria faces growing food shortages because harvests have been slashed by the fighting between government forces and opposition rebels. He said Assad has no intention of carrying out reforms which would end his family's 40-year dictatorship. Meanwhile, regime warplanes struck rebel positions in Aleppo Monday, killing three children. Britain-based watchdog the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said three children from one family were among five people killed in a strike by regime warplanes Monday on the northern city of Aleppo. “Three children from the same family were killed when their building collapsed in Maadi district, which is located in the Old City of Aleppo,” the Observatory's Rami Abdel Rahman said. – Agencies
