80 killed in latest Syrian massacre; UN monitors come under fire

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2012-06-08

Syria saw more violence as around 80 people, including women and children, were shot, hacked to death and burned in their homes in a village in Hama province, activists said. Meanwhile, UN monitors proceeding to the site of violence came under fire.

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UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said that unarmed U.N. monitors were fired on as they were going to the village of Qubeir, west of Hama where the latest Syrian mass killing took place.

Activists have accused the forces of President Bashar al-Assad of the latest killings.

Ban told the U.N. General Assembly that the monitors "were shot at with small arms" as they tried to reach Mazraat al-Qubair in central Hama province. It was not clear who was behind the shooting.

Ban, international envoy Kofi Annan and others have pleaded with the UN General Assembly to stop the violence in Syria.

The latest report of mass killings comes days after more than 100 people, including many children and women, were killed in Houla in central Homs province in their homes. While U.N. investigators have blamed pro-government forces of the killings, the Assad regime has denied responsibility and blamed the rebels for the deaths.

The Houla massacre sparked international outrage and many countries expelled Syrian diplomats from their countries.

International envoy Kofi Annan, in a grim assessment of the situation in Syria, said: "If things do not change, the future is likely to be one of brutal repression, massacres, sectarian violence, and even all-out civil war," he told the General Assembly.

Annan said his six-point plan isn't working and the "crisis is escalating."

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, criticizing the Assad government, said: "The regime-sponsored violence that we witnessed again in Hama yesterday is simply unconscionable."

"Assad has doubled down on his brutality and duplicity, and Syria will not, cannot be peaceful, stable or certainly democratic until Assad goes."

Source: Middle East News.Net

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