Red Cross 'Struggling To Cope' With Worsening Syria Crisis

As 133 more people died in Syria on Thursday, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross, Peter Maurer, said it "can't cope with the worsening of the situation" there, Reuters reported.

"We are in a situation where the humanitarian situation due to the conflict is getting worse. And despite the fact that the scope of the operation is increasing, we can't cope with the worsening of the situation," Maurer said a press conference in Geneva.

"There is an unknown number of people in Syria who do not get the aid they need," he added, explaining that the Red Cross was like "a plane without instruments" and has "a lot of blank spots" where they haven't been able to deliver aid.

"It's an issue sometimes of bureaucratic restrictions, sometimes of military strategic restrictions and sometimes just of security decisions of our delegation not to go into a certain context," he told the conference.

The popular uprising against current Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, now dragging into its 20th month, has killed some 36,000 people and internally displaced close to 1.2 million, the U.N. estimates. Another 350,000 people have fled the country to Lebanon, Turkey, and Jordan.

On Thursday, Assad told Russia Today that he is not "a Western puppet," that he would "live and die" in Syria, and warned against outside intervention.

"I think that the price of this invasion, if it happened, is going to be bigger than the whole world can afford," Assad said in an interview to be broadcast on Friday. "It will have a domino effect that will affect the world from the Atlantic to the Pacific. I do not think the West is going in this direction, but if they do so, nobody can tell what is next."

Russia has been one of Assad's staunchest allies, particularly in the U.N. Security Council, where both Russia and China have repeatedly blocked measures meant to punish or condemn Assad.