Children among the dead as Assad’s men wage sectarian war across Syria

MORE than 50 people have been killed in two days of turmoil in Syria, as forces loyal to president Bashar al-Assad shelled homes, fired on crowds and left the dead and wounded bleeding in the streets, activists said last night.

Much of the violence was focused on Homs, where heavy gunfire hammered the city yesterday for a second day.

The day before, the city saw a flare-up of sectarian kidnappings and killings between its Sunni and Alawite communities, and pro-regime forces blasted residential buildings with mortars and gunfire, said activists.

Video posted online showed the bodies of five children, five women and a man, all bloodied and piled on beds after a building was hit in the Karm el-Zaytoun neighbourhood of Homs. The authenticity of the video could not be independently verified.

Activists said at least 30 people were killed in Homs on Thursday and another 21 killed across Syria yesterday.

In an attempt to stop the bloodshed, the UN Security Council held a closed-door meeting last night to discuss the crisis, a step toward a possible resolution, diplomats said.

As of 7 January, it was estimated at least 384 children have been killed in the Syrian uprising, Unicef said. Most of the children killed were boys, and most of the dead were residents of Homs.

The uprising, which began last March with mostly peaceful protests, has become increasingly violent in recent months as army defectors clash with government forces and some protesters take up arms to protect themselves. The violence has enflamed the potentially explosive sectarian divide in the country, where an Alawite minority dominates the regime despite a Sunni Muslim majority.

The head of the Arab League’s observers in Syria admitted the violence had increased this week. Sudanese General Mohammed Ahmed al-Dabi said Homs, Hama and Idlib have all witnessed a “very high escalation” in violence since Tuesday.

Yesterday morning, Mr Assad’s forces launched a “fierce military campaign” in the Hamadiyeh district of Hama, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It said the sound of heavy machine-gun fire and loud explosions were heard across Hama.

Some activists reported seeing bodies in the city’s streets.

Elsewhere, a car bomb exploded at a checkpoint outside the northern city of Idlib, the Observatory said.

Details of Thursday’s wave of killings in Homs were reported by activists and residents, who said the gunfire had not ceased.

Thursday started with a spate of sectarian kidnappings and killings between the city’s population of Sunnis and Alawites, a Shia sect to which Mr Assad belongs, said Mohammad Saleha, a Homs resident.

The violence culminated with the killing of the family, it is claimed. The Observatory said at least 11 people, including eight children, died when a building came under heavy mortar and machine-gun fire. Some residents spoke of a massacre that took place when shabiha – armed regime loyalists – stormed the neighbourhood, slaughtering residents in an apartment, including children.

“It’s racial cleansing,” said a Sunni resident of Karm el-Zaytoun. “They are killing people because of their sect.”