Syria: “Women, children savagely massacred in Homs

The bodies of 47 women and children have reportedly been slaughtered by Syrian government forces in the battered city of Homs. where regime forces have been fighting against armed rebels.

• A Syrian activist in Homs, told reporters the bodies of 26 children and 21 women were found in the Karm el-Zaytoun and Al-Adawiyeh neighbourhoods of the embattled city.

• He said that some of the victims had their throats slit and others had been stabbed.

• “Some of the children had been hit with blunt objects on their head, one little girl was mutilated and some women were raped before being killed,” he woefully added.

• The main opposition group, the Syrian National Council (SNC), called for an emergency UN Security Council meeting to discuss the “massacre”.

• “The Syrian National Council is making the necessary contacts with all organizations and countries that are friends with the Syrian people for the UN Security Council to hold an emergency meeting,” the SNC said in a statement.

• In a clear reference to Russia and China, the SNC said that allies of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad shared responsibility for the “atrocious crimes” committed by his regime.

• News of the killings sparked a mass exodus from the city, according to Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

• “Hundreds of families fled Homs overnight, notably from the Karm el-Zaytoun neighbourhood, for fear of new massacres by regime forces,” Mr Rahman told news outlets.

• However, Syria’s State television blamed “armed terrorist gangs” for the killings.

• Meanwhile, a car bomb killed a schoolgirl this morning and wounded 25 others at a school in the southern city of Deraa, the scene of sporadic street fighting between Free Syrian Army rebels and Government troops, an opposition activist said.