UN: Syrian crackdown has killed over 3,500
Despite an agreement to end the assault against what the government says are "armed gangs", the United Nations and activists said troops and militiamen loyal to Assad had extended their control over Homs after six days of bombardment.
"The brutal government crackdown on dissent in Syria has so far claimed the lives of more than 3,500 Syrians," UN Human Rights Office spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani told reporters in Geneva.
"Since Syria signed the peace plan sponsored by the League of Arab States last week, more than 60 people are reported to have been killed by military and security forces, including at least 19 on the Sunday that marked Eid al-Adha (the main Muslim feast)."
Syria agreed to the Arab League plan on Nov. 2, pledging to pull its military from restive cities, set political prisoners free and start talks with the opposition, which wants to remove Assad and introduce more democratic freedoms, within two weeks.
Syria's representative to the Arab League, said Damascus had "gone a long away" toward implementing the plan, pointing to the release of around 500 detainees under a conditional amnesty announced last week.
But Arab and Western powers are getting increasingly frustrated with Damascus' failure to stem the crackdown. Qatar's prime minister has called for Arab states to meet on Saturday to discuss it, while France's foreign minister said Syria was witnessing "a new round of repression".
Residents in Homs, Syria's third largest city which has been at the forefront of seven months of protests against Assad's rule, said troops had entered a residential district yesterday and were consolidating their control.
"I sneaked in to see my father today, who was hit by shrapnel. The number of troops and shabbiha (militia) in Bab Amro is now in the thousands and the looting is rampant," a resident who gave his name as Sami said by phone.
He said he saw militiamen and soldiers in one neighborhood carrying refrigerators, televisions and computer screens and putting them in jeeps and pick-up trucks. A school was turned into a detention centre where scores of youths were laid out in the courtyard with their hands tied behind their backs, he said.
Events in Syria are difficult to verify independently because the government has barred most foreign journalists.
Six civilians, including two women and an eight-year-old, were killed yesterday in the city and its rural environs, activists said. They also said that 150 soldiers had defected in the last 24 hours.
The Syrian Observatory for human rights said fighting broke out in the city of Hama, 45 km (28 miles) north of Homs, between loyalist forces and army defectors, and eight soldiers and security police were killed in an ambush near the city of Maarat al-Numaan to the north of Hama.
The UN death toll marks an increase of some 500 since Oct. 14 when the United Nations put the death toll at more than 3,000. But Shamdasani said the UN estimate was relatively conservative and below others.
Syrian activists put the number of civilians killed in the conflict as high as 4,200.
In August, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay called on the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court.
"We stand by that call," Shamdasani said.
Syria's government has not allowed UN investigators into the country, so the figures are based on information from "credible sources on the ground" that could be corroborated, Shamdasani said.
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