Relative calm continued in Syria today, as the ceasefire managed to survive another weekend with a significantly lower death toll than there was during the past few weeks of fighting.
The UN announced that it has agreed to maintain part of its monitor team as a “permanent” presence in the city of Homs, the site of the heaviest fighting in the civil war. At the moment this means two people are staying, but as the overall observer mission increases from 6 to 300 members in the weeks to come, this is liable to increase.
While the fighting hasn’t entirely died down since the ceasefire began over a week ago, it does seem that it more or less stops completely in a city when the monitors are present, as neither side particularly wants to be caught in overt violations in front of the UN team.
This could mean that violence will continue to drop even further as the UN team slowly trickles into the country, giving the observers an opportunity to cover virtually all the contested areas.
Of course, another interpretation would be that the level of violence has been much exaggerated by the media in the past due to its reliance on opposition propaganda and that the presence of the UN observers simply forces them to be more honest in their reporting.