This image made from amateur video released by Shaam News Network and accessed Friday, May 25, 2012 purports to show a wounded child being evacuated in Aleppo, Syria. (AP-Yonhap News)
At least 90 people, many of them children, were killed in a town in the restive province of Homs in Syria in an attack by government forces, activists said.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and U.N.-Arab League special envoy Kofi Annan issued a statement saying U.N. monitors inspected the scene and confirmed dozens of civilians were killed in the shelling, The Washington Post reported.
"This appalling and brutal crime involving indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force is a flagrant violation of international law and of the commitments of the Syrian Government to cease the use of heavy weapons in population centers and violence in all its forms," the statement said. "Those responsible for perpetrating this crime must be held to account."
U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said "the international community" would step up pressure on "Assad and his cronies, whose rule by murder and fear must come to an end."
The attack in Houla prompted opposition activists to plead for international help in stopping the government attacks, CNN reported.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights reported Saturday government forces opened fire on international observers in Al-Quseir, Homs, to prevent them from getting to the area, and the observers returned to their hotels.
The opposition Local Coordinating Committees said 43 people were killed elsewhere in Syria Friday.
"We in the Local Coordination Committees are pained by the international community's apparent blindness to the bloodshed, and believe the United Nations Security Council bears the responsibility for its inability to protect Syrian civilians," the group said.
"It's unbelievable that we have 7 billion people on this planet, and they all can't do anything about what they are seeing on TV," activist Abu Emad told CNN.
"Do something," he said in a plea to the international community.
The LCC said most of those killed in Houla were women and children.
Activists said security forces had killed entire families, some in heavy shelling, others who were caught and summarily executed, the BBC reported.
Six members of one family were killed when their house was shelled, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The Daily Telegraph said footage posted online shows bodies of civilians, many of them children, lying on a floor, some covered with blankets.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted in a report Friday the "continuing crisis" in Syria and cited "extensive human rights violations."
"There are continuing reports of a stepped-up security crackdown by the authorities that has led to massive violations of humans rights by government forces and pro-government militias, including arbitrary arrests, torture, enforced disappearance and summary execution of activists, opponents and defectors," Ban wrote in a letter to the U.N. Security Council.
He acknowledged U.N. observers had not stopped the violence.
The Syrian government said 16 people had been killed by "terrorists" Friday but did not mention violence in Houla.
The government routinely blames outside terrorists for violence in the country.
The United Nations says at least 10,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011.
(UPI)
<관련 한글 기사>
시리아 '훌라학살'…어린이 32명 희생
시리아 홈스주 훌라에 대한 정부군과 민병대의 무차별 공격으로 10세 이하 어린이 32명 이상이 희생된 것으로 알려지면서 국제사회가 충격을 감추지 못하고 있다.
시리아 정부군과 반군의 휴전을 감시하기 위해 파견된 로버트 무드 유엔 감시단장은 26일(현지시간) 유엔 감시단이 훌라 지역을 방문해 92구의 시체를 확인했다면서 특히 "10세 이하의 희생자가 32명을 넘었다"고 치를 떨었다.
시리아 국영 언론은 지난 4월 명목상의 휴전이 시행된 이후 최악의 유혈사태인 이번 일이 무장한 테러단체들 때문에 일어났다고 주장했지만 참혹한 현장을 담은 수십건의 동영상이 공개되면서 국제사회의 분노를 자아내고 있다.
유튜브에 올라온 한 동영상 속에는 어린이들의 시신이 훌라 거리에 널려 있었으며 다른 동영상에는 모스크 안으로 옮겨진 피투성이가 된 참혹한 모습의 어린이 시신 10여구의 모습이 담겨 있었다.
또다른 동영상에는 시신 4구가 들어갈 정도의 폭에 길이가 수십ｍ에 달하는 집단매장지가 나와 이번 공격으로 인한 희생자가 수가 얼마나 많은지를 간접적으로 보여줬다.
(코리아헤럴드)
