International Red Cross Chief Visits Syria's Daraa

International Committee of the Red Cross chief Jakob Kellenberger traveled on Wednesday to Daraa to assess the humanitarian needs in the birthplace of Syria's year-long uprising, the ICRC said.

Two lorries filled with food aid and hygiene kits, as well as 500 blankets, were unloaded at Red Cross depots in Daraa ready for distribution, ICRC spokesman in Damascus Saleh Dabbakeh told Agence France Presse.

Kellenberger "visited Daraa to investigate on the ground about the real humanitarian situation in the city," he said.

He also visited the towns of Sheikh Maskin, Izraa and Nawa in Dawa province of southern Syria.

The ICRC has been pushing for a daily humanitarian truce in the Syria conflict, which began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad in Daraa in March 2011 and has since claimed more than 9,000 lives according to the U.N.

The humanitarian ceasefire is included in a six-point peace plan drawn up by U.N.-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan aimed at ending the hostilities.

Assad last week pledged to implement the peace plan by April 10.

But the United States said on Tuesday that there was "no evidence" he had started doing so.

Also on Tuesday, Foreign Minister Walid Muallem told the visiting Red Cross chief that Syria would do its utmost to ensure the success of the ICRC mission to the strife-torn country.

But rebels claim the humanitarian situation is deteriorating as the government intensifies its crackdown on dissent.