Escape From Homs: Despair Amid The Onslaught

The city of Homs is locked down, they are short of everything and they are still being attacked by government tanks and artillery.

It is utterly horrendous in the Syrian city and it is about to get worse in towns and villages all the way to the Lebanese border.

A Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighter pulled me aside as we listened to an argument develop amongst the locals in the village where we were staying, on the outskirts of Baba Amra, the most attacked anti-government enclave in Homs.

He said that they believed 10,000 government troops were being deployed along with more tanks, armoured personnel carriers and artillery pieces.

Urging me to leave the area, he said there was no way that they could defend any of their positions for even an hour if an assault began.

Most believe that Syrian President Bashar Assad's is following in the footsteps of his father who, 30 years ago, killed tens of thousands who rose against him. History is repeating itself.

The attacks on civilian areas are unrelenting. People are being shot by snipers in the street when they have managed to escape the areas being hit by the barrage of artillery and mortars.

Desperate people make human chains to drag the fallen to covered ground. Often it is far too late.

Children cower in buildings. Their parents are unable to protect them. If a full on assault happens then all men of a fighting age will be picked up. In Syria's restive areas today that is virtually every male.

For a week we have lived beneath the sound of crunching artillery and tank rounds - everyday people have been killed or wounded. It doesn't let up.

The overwhelming feeling is of utter hopelessness and disbelief that the international community is doing nothing to stop the barbaric destruction of residential housing areas by the Syrian government forces.

The FSA is certainly visible everywhere one travels. But they are pockets of armed resistance, nothing more. The people are against the government but have no desire to pick up arms and fight.

Quite the opposite, in fact. The want to demonstrate and show their anger but they have no interest in armed conflict.

With the government forces closing in on Homs we left by car through deserted towns, through fields and back roads to the last FSA stronghold. A breeze block building in a forest next to a minor road.

Inside they were handing out weapons. Sometimes their commander had to show his young fighters how to operate the weapons.

They are pitifully short of ammunition. They are counting bullets and handing them out - against a proper army this is hopeless.

Nobody doubts that from here to the Lebanese border everything and everyone is a target. But the commanders remain upbeat.

Abu Waleed, a young commander who has a reputation something akin to Robin Hood, in these parts, admits privately that things are very bad and that the FSA are totally powerless.

But he says they will attack.

"The only way they will get in here in their tanks is if they drive over our bodies," he said.

"It may happen like that."

The numbers of dead and injured in cities towns and villages across the country are growing. Apparently there is nothing to stop this, certainly not by the outside world.

Arab League monitors may soon return. They will certainly go to Homs. They may not recognise it any more.