Egypt's deposed president Mohammed Morsi charged he was being muzzled in a soundproof dock at the start of his trial on espionage charges Sunday, as his defense lawyers staged a protest walk-out.

The court adjourned the trial, the third for the Islamist since his July 3 ouster, to February 23 to allow the lawyers' syndicate to appoint new lawyers.

Nearly 200 men evacuated from Syria's Homs city and held by security services will receive religion classes to "modify their incorrect interpretation of Islam", the provincial governor said Saturday.

Talal Barazi told Agence France Presse the 179 men in custody would receive religious instruction, along with support sessions from psychologists.

Red Cross chief Peter Maurer voiced alarm Saturday over the chaos surrounding the evacuation from the besieged Syrian city of Homs, urging the warring sides to respect basic humanitarian law.

"I am concerned about the conditions in which the evacuations took place and about the number of people who remain trapped and unaided between front lines throughout Syria," Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, said in a statement.

President Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi on Saturday lashed out at the "below-par" performance of Yemen's security services, after 29 inmates including suspected al-Qaida members escaped from Sanaa central prison.

The prison break after an assault on Thursday unmasked a lack of improved security at the facility, despite vows by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) chief Nasser al-Wuhayshi last year to free incarcerated members of his group.

The U.N.'s agency for Palestinian refugees UNRWA on Saturday urged renewed access to the Yarmuk camp in the Syrian capital Damascus, a week after operations to distribute aid were halted.

"We have been unable to distribute food in Yarmuk for over a week now, which is potentially disastrous for the besieged civilians there, trapped by the conflict and desperately dependent on UNRWA," spokesman Chris Gunness said.

Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague on Saturday blamed President Bashar Assad's regime for the breakdown in talks between Syria's warring sides, calling the situation a "serious setback" for peace.

"The failure to agree an agenda for future rounds of talks ... is a serious setback in the search for peace in Syria, and the responsibility for it lies squarely with the Assad regime," Hague said in a statement.

The death toll in nearly three years of conflict in Syria has risen to more than 140,000 people including nearly 50,000 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Saturday.

In a new toll, the Britain-based NGO said 140,041 people had been killed since the uprising began in March 2011, gradually transforming into a bloody civil war.

The U.N.'s Syria envoy said he was "very, very sorry" Saturday as peace talks in Geneva broke off with no progress made and no date set for a third round.

Just weeks after the warring parties sat down for the first time to seek a political settlement to the three-year conflict, a second round ended in acrimony.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki paid a visit Saturday to the battleground city of Ramadi, where security forces and allied tribesmen have for weeks fought to retake militant-held areas.

During the visit, Maliki will be briefed on the progress of military operations in the Anbar provincial capital, west of Baghdad, and meet leaders of the powerful local tribes, an official from his office told AFP, without providing further details.

Eighteen Iraqi soldiers and police have been killed in targeted attacks and clashes, officials and doctors said Saturday, as the country struggles to contain its worst violence in years.

Meanwhile, militants Saturday held part of the northern town of Sulaiman Bek, after security forces withdrew despite reportedly making gains in a battle for control of the area the day before.