BBC News with Iain Purdon
The International Committee of the Red Cross says the Syrian government has given it permission to enter the
besieged
district of Baba Amr in Homs tomorrow just hours after opposition fighters retreated. Carla Mardini is a spokeswoman for the ICRC in Geneva.
"We'll be bringing in food and medical aid. As to the figures of the teams, this is being organised right now, so I can't give you more. We also don't have the figures of how many people were seriously wounded or dead. We'll have to see what the situation is
on the spot
. It's a priority for us to enter so we can
assess
the situation on the ground and decide how we're going to respond the most efficiently and the most rapidly."
Earlier, opposition fighters in Homs announced that they were staging what they called a "
tactical
withdrawal" from Baba Amr. It's been a major opposition stronghold and has faced weeks of heavy
shelling
from government forces with reports of hundreds of deaths. Syrian officials say the army is now in control of the area.
In another development, the United Nations Security Council has
unanimously
demanded immediate humanitarian access to Syria, and the statement was backed by China and Russia, who until now have resisted any moves to condemn Syria or take action against it. Jane O'Brien reports from Washington.
The unanimous statement