The conflict in Syria has displaced some 250,000 people in the western city of Homs alone, the U.N.'s refugee agency said Friday, demanding safe passage for civilians trying to flee the violence.

"This city (Homs) is really in a desperate situation," UNHCR spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told reporters in Geneva, saying that "being displaced inside Syria is a very scary and a vulnerable situation to be in."

Phone and Internet networks were down across most of Syria for a second straight day on Friday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported.

"In some areas, it is possible to access the Internet but with great difficulty," Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told Agence France Presse.

Fighting between rebels and troops raged around Damascus airport through the night but the main road to the capital had reopened and the airport was functioning normally on Friday, various sources said.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the main road to Damascus from the airport, which was closed Thursday due to the fighting, had reopened but said a bus carrying airport employees had been hit by a shell, killing two people.

Delegates from more than 60 countries agreed in Tokyo Friday to ramp up pressure on Bashar Assad's regime and urged the international community to unite to force change in Syria.

The "Friends of Syria" condemned the "incessant killings, bombings of residential areas" and the "gross violation of human rights" that have taken place since Assad's forces moved to crush an uprising.

Two Austrian soldiers stationed with the U.N. force on the Golan Heights were shot and wounded in Syria while their convoy was traveling to Damascus airport on Thursday, the defense ministry in Vienna said.

The two troops, whose lives were not in danger, were part of the Austrian contingent of the United Nations Disengagement Observers Force (UNDOF) on the Golan Heights and were traveling to Damascus airport to fly back to Austria after their tour of duty, the ministry said.

The old Syria ruled by President Bashar Assad's family is finished and the "new Syria" will never be the same, the U.N. special envoy said Thursday, in a strong hint that Assad will have to step down before a civil war can end.

Speaking to reporters after briefing the U.N. Security Council on what he said was the deteriorating situation in Syria, U.N.-Arab League peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi did not mention Assad by name.

Al-Akhbar newspaper unveiled on Thursday a taped conversation between al-Mustaqbal MP Oqab Saqr and Abou Nehman, a “leader in the armed Syrian opposition”, during which they apparently agree on a weapon delivery deal.

"Please help us, we need weapons,” Abou Nehman tells Saqr in the audio recording posted on the newspaper's website and aired during OTV's evening newscast.

Two U.S.-based Internet-monitoring companies say Syria has shut off the Internet nationwide.

Activists in Syria reached Thursday by satellite telephone confirmed the unprecedented blackout, which comes amid intense fighting in the capital, Damascus.

Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblat condemned on Thursday the bombing that targeted the Jarmana town in Syria on Wednesday, saying that it is aimed at stirring sectarian tensions in the country.

He therefore urged in a statement Syria's “Druze population to join the Syrian rebels who are marking in blood heroic battles against oppression on a daily basis.”

Human Rights Watch on Thursday accused the Syrian opposition of using young boys to serve as fighters, guards and lookouts in the brutal conflict with regime forces.

"Children as young as 14 have served in at least three opposition brigades, transporting weapons and supplies and acting as lookouts," the New York-based watchdog said. "Children as young as 16 have carried arms and taken combat roles against government forces."