Two French journalists who had been trapped for days in the besieged Homs neighborhood of Baba Amr have been moved to safety in Lebanon, officials said Thursday.

"I can confirm that it's official," French President Nicolas Sarkozy told BFM-TV about the whereabouts of Edith Bouvier and William Daniels. "They are in security."

In a statement, French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe said they were being looked after by the French Embassy, "and everything is being done to provide them with medical attention and to return them home as quickly as possible."

He added, "Both personally and on behalf of the French government, I want to warmly thank all those who, often at the risk of their own life, have made this outcome possible. You have France's gratitude."

Bouvier was wounded in an attack last week on a makeshift media center in Baba Amr, which killed French journalist Remi Ochlik and U.S. journalist Marie Colvin.

The opposition group Avaaz said it had helped Bouvier and Daniels to escape. The pair had left Baba Amr with British photographer Paul Conroy and Spanish photographer Javier Espinosa on Sunday evening, "but were forced to return back to Baba Amr after they were targeted on the outskirts of the town," Avaaz said in a statement. "Bouvier had broken her femur in the attack that killed Marie Colvin and Remi Ochlik, and she had to be evacuated on a wooden stretcher."

A second evacuation attempt on Tuesday moved Daniels and Bouvier to a safer neighborhood of Homs.

"Against incredible odds, Syrian activists have rescued all four international journalists from the hell of Baba Amr," Avaaz said. The group said 13 activists from Homs died during the rescue efforts.

The group said that, during the past week, it had evacuated the four wounded journalists and 47 civilians from Homs even as it was also smuggling medicines, food and other international journalists into Baba Amr.

Conroy and Espinosa also made it to safety.

Apparently, the state-run Syrian Arab News Agency did not get that message. Citing a source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates, it reported Thursday that authorities had discovered the body of Espinosa along with those of Colvin and Ochlik after the Syrian Army "cleansed Baba Amr from the foreign-backed armed groups of terrorists."

After DNA analysis confirms the identities, they will be handed over to the embassies of Poland, on behalf of the U.S. Embassy, France and Spain, it said.

In an interview from Beirut, Espinosa said that the report of his death "would be a nice joke" if not for the suffering of the people of Baba Amr.

He described a typical day in the neighborhood as one that routinized horror: Shelling began at 6 a.m. and continued until 1 p.m., when the army stopped for precisely one hour. "They just stop for lunch," he told CNN. At 2 p.m., the shelling resumed until 6 p.m., when it ended until picking up again the following morning, he said. "It's very systematic."

The shelling was concentrated in a 12-square-kilometer (5-square-mile) area, he added.

Espinosa said he too was in the media center on the day when Colvin and Ochlik were killed and Bouvier was wounded. "We were just sleeping and the rockets started falling down on our building," striking it at least twice, he said. The media officer told the journalists inside to get out, and several complied immediately, he said.

But as Espinosa was trying to get outside, someone inside the building heard the sound of an incoming shell and told him to come back, which he did, taking shelter next to a wall. But by then, "Marie and Remi were already outside, where they received the full explosion of the rocket."

The French journalists' rescue came on the same day that aid groups got the green light to enter Baba Amr and government forces moved to take control of the restive neighborhood.

Security forces barged into homes and snipers took positions on the rooftops of government buildings after opposition forces retreated, activists said.

The army "entered Baba Amr today in full force" amid what one activist source called a "bloodbath" in the neighborhood, which has been shelled daily for more than three weeks, said Avaaz, an anti-government activist group.

"There are bodies on the street," said Alice Jay, an Avaaz official. "Residents have never been more desperate. There is no food, no medicine and civilians are melting snow for drinking water."

The forces effectively ignored a U.N. Human Rights Council resolution on Thursday that condemned Syria's "widespread and systematic violations of human rights" and called on the regime to permit aid groups in to distribute relief.

The government forces' advance in Baba Amr came as the Free Syrian Army said Thursday it had decided to withdraw for the sake of the civilians remaining in the neighborhood, citing dismal humanitarian conditions and a lack of arms by resistance fighters.

It said around 4,000 civilians were refusing to leave the neighborhood.

"There is no food whatsoever, no medicines, no water and no electricity. There is no communication in the area, thus making matters much worse," it said. "The Assad army has destroyed most of the civilian homes up to now" using missiles, mortar shells and helicopters.