UN chief lambasts 'atrocious' Homs assault

Ban Ki-moon said Syria is "systematically attacking own people", prompting the country's UN envoy to accuse him of "slander".

The UN chief said he has received "grisly reports" that Syrian government forces are arbitrarily executing, imprisoning and torturing people in Homs after opposition fighters in the flashpoint city fled.

Ban Ki-moon's comments came as a wounded British photographer, who escaped Homs earlier this week, said he had witnessed Syrian troops carrying out a massacre in the city's Baba Amr district, which has become a symbol of a year-long uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.

"A major assault on Homs took place yesterday," Ban told the UN General Assembly in New York on Friday.

"Civilian losses have clearly been heavy. We continue to received grisly reports of summary executions, arbitrary detentions and torture."

In some of his toughest criticism of Syria to date, Ban said "this atrocious assault is all the more appalling for having been waged by the government itself, systematically attacking its own people".

Taking to the podium after Ban, Syria's ambassador to the UN, Bashar Jaafari, told the General Assembly that the secretary-general's statements were "slandering" his country.

He said Ban's remarks included "extremely virulent rhetoric that confines itself to slandering a government based on reports, opinions or hearsay."

Speaking for 45 minutes, Jaafari said the UN chief's statements "come from the opposition or from people who are abroad or people who are living in countries which are open enemies of Syria".

"The secretary-general is not duly informed," he said, reiterating that the Syrian opposition consisted of "armed terrorist groups". 

Earlier on Friday, Ban made a plea for Syria to grant access for aid workers to besieged Syrian towns, describing images of death coming out of them as atrocious. 

Ban was speaking after the International Committee of the Red Cross told Syria it was unacceptable that its aid convoy had been prevented from entering Homs where the opposition said Assad's army had committed a massacre. "It's totally unacceptable, intolerable," he said. "How as a human being can you bear ... this situation? That really troubles me. I'm deeply sad seeing what's happening," Ban Ki-moon added.