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pictures of covered body. |
UPDATE -- AFP reports that the Free Syrian Army is no longer committed to Kofi Annan's peace plan.
(Reuters) - The United Nations said on Saturday that more than 92 people
were killed in what activists said was an artillery barrage by
government forces in the worst violence since the start of a U.N. peace plan to slow the flow of blood in Syria's uprising.
The bloodied
bodies
of children, some with their skulls split open, were shown in footage
posted to YouTube purporting to show the victims of the shelling in the
central town of Houla on Friday. The sound of wailing filled the room.
The carnage underlined just how far Syria is from any negotiated path
out of the 14-month-old revolt against President Bashar al-Assad.
"This morning U.N. military and civilian observers went to Houla and
counted more than 32 children under the age of 10 and over 60 adults
killed," the head of U.N. team monitoring the ceasefire - which has yet
to take hold - said.
Photo Of An Injured Child
"The observers confirmed from examination of ordinances the use of
artillery tank shells," Major General Robert Mood said in a statement,
without elaborating. "Whoever started, whoever responded and whoever
carried out this
deplorable act of violence should be held responsible."
Activists said Assad's forces shelled the town of Houla on Friday
evening after security forces killed a protester and following
skirmishes between
troops and fighters from the Sunni Muslim-led insurgency fighting Syria's rulers, who belong to the minority Alawite sect.
A British-based
opposition group, the
Syrian Observatory
for Human Rights, said Houla residents fled, fearing more shelling. It
said one person was killed in the northern town of Saraqeb when
troops fired on a protest against the killing.
Syrian state television aired some of the footage disseminated by activists after the killing in Houla, calling the
bodies victims of a massacre committed by "terrorist" gangs.
It also showed video of
bodies with what looked like gunshot wounds to the head, sprawled on bloodstained mattresses.
Activists distributed footage appearing to show
protests in Aleppo, the largest city in the north.
FAMILIES KILLED
A member of the fragmented exile group that says it speaks for Syria's political
opposition said Assad's forces had killed "entire families" in Houla in addition to the shelling.
"The Syrian National Council (SNC) urges the U.N. Security Council to call for an
emergency meeting
... and to determine the responsibility of the United Nations in the
face of such mass killings," SNC spokeswoman Bassma Kodmani said.
Although Annan's six-week old ceasefire plan has failed to stop the
violence, the United Nations is nearing full deployment of a 300-strong
unarmed observer force meant to monitor a truce.
The plan calls for a truce, withdrawal of
troops from cities and dialogue between the
government and opposition.
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius condemned the violence as a
"massacre", and said he wanted to arrange a meeting in Paris of the
Friends of Syria, a group that brings together Western and Arab
countries keen to remove Assad.
Fabius said that "U.N. observers need to be able to complete their
mission and the U.N.-Arab League's
joint special envoy's exit plan has to be implemented immediately".
In a statement, Arab League head Nabil Elaraby called the killing in
Houla a "horrific crime", urging the U.N. Security Council - where
Russia and
China have protected Syria - to "stop the escalation of killing and violence by armed gangs and government military forces."
Syria calls the revolt a "terrorist" conspiracy run from abroad, a veiled reference to
Sunni Muslim Gulf powers
that want to see weapons provided to an insurgency led by Syria's
majority Sunnis against Assad, a member of the minority Alawite sect.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Friday that recent bomb attacks may have been the
work of "established
terrorist groups" and urged states not to supply arms to either the
government or rebel forces.
"Those who may contemplate supporting any side with weapons, military
training or other military assistance, must reconsider such options to
enable a sustained cessation of violence," he told the Security Council
in a letter.
The United Nations has accused Assad's forces and insurgents alike of
grave human rights abuses, including summary executions and torture.
Ban has also expressed fear that Syria's conflict will destabilize
neighboring Lebanon, whose delicate sect-based politics has been shaken
by tensions among Lebanese foes and friends of the uprising in Syria.
In the latest episode, gunmen in northern Syria snatched a group of
Lebanese Shi'ites this week as they were returning from a religious
pilgrimage, sparking the worst unrest in
years in the Lebanese capital.
Uncertainty over their fate increased tension in Beirut on Saturday, a
day after Lebanon's top officials said the release of the hostages and
their return home was imminent.
The prime minister said on Friday afternoon they had been freed, but by
Saturday there was still no sign of them. A member of the SNC said they
were still in captivity, further angering a crowd that had gathered at
Beirut's airport to meet them.