UN to send humanitarian team to Syria Saturday

The United Nations plans to send a team to Syria this weekend to assess the humanitarian situation there after the government's harsh crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators, a UN official said on Thursday.

Humanitarian affairs chief Valerie Amos told the UN Security Council at a closed-door meeting on Syria that Damascus had agreed to allow a team led by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to visit Syria on Saturday, a diplomat told Reuters on condition of anonymity. (Reuters)