A source was quoted as saying on Monday that the Arab observers will begin their mission in Syria by visiting the restive city of Homs on Tuesday. The observers will also visit the capital, Damascus, Hama and Idlib.
The first group is expected to include some 50 observers. The head of the Observer Mission team is the former Sudanese intelligence chief Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, who said that the monitoring mission will meet the various forces in Syria, including the opposition.
According to reports on Sunday, the team led by Mohamed al-Dabi arrived in Damascus already but the Syrian media declined to report his arrival.
Meanwhile, the death toll in Syria on Sunday has risen to 19 people, including three children. Eyewitnesses reported about heavy shelling on the Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr for the fourth consecutive day. They described the humanitarian situation there as "disastrous" and spoke about an acute shortage of medical supplies and food. The opposition said that thousands of Syrian soldiers have been imposing a tight siege on Bab Amr.
According to the local coordinating committees in Syria, seven people were killed in Homs, while six others died in Deir Al-Zour. Rights activists said two people were killed in Damascus countryside, and one person in each of Dara'a, Aleppo, Hama and Latakia.
