*GRAPHIC WARNING* | Homs, #Syria: Martyrs from the massacres of Al-Rifai and Karam Al-Zeitoun neighborhoods 20/3/2012
The Massacre of Children and Families in Al Refai and Karam al Zeitoun Neighbourhoods #Syria
by Baba Amro News (@BabaAmroNews)
Since one week, the neighborhoods of Karam al-Zeitoun, Ashira, al-Adawia, al-Refai, and al-Wawiat are under siege with dozens of tanks and thousands of soldiers. The neighborhoods were under heavy continues shelling for several days. Following that, Assad troops and militia “Shabiha” were break into civilian houses in those neighborhoods, in the time where all telecommunication networks disconnected. Day after day, we discover new massacres in this area of Homs.
NUMBER OF KILLED CIVILIANS
======================
There is still no clear idea about the final number of killed civilians in the last ten days, but what we documented is more than thundered person killed. The most brutal one was in al-Adawi, the following videos bring you close to the event:
Children and women massacre in al-Adawi when we found it
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wrbdNCW03_k http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V54XtBl_-VQ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fKOighAP6tU
Homs: Baba al-Sebaa: The bodies of women and children fill the place of makeshift hospital 11-03-2012
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jnz1YvBMm04
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uPMLtO_VWQI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EEzs4kc1uro
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BW7o6HYO8n4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6R5tTBhiF5M
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJeWQPiA0VQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T71mwvgApLg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YRtBPKOdrcs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XUNKPOh55GU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nGz87YglpEI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_7hpxev5Hs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cp5k9QniITU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acAStRnNzns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fGxVAHXGdMc
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kjPd60OAvQg
The only survivor from the massacre of al-Adawia speaks about what he witnessed
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vdC6-ad3RGo
MASSACRE OF FAMILIES, AND 32 CHILDREN SURVIVED AFTER THEIR BODIES BEING DISMEMBERED
======================
On 15 March 2012, the rebels were able to reach some places on the border of al-Refai neighbourhood to look for any saviour and to recover the killed bodies. They found 32 children, 2 women are still alive and many died bodies (men, women, and children). The signs of gun shot can be seen on the bodies of children, some of them his stomach was stabbed, some their fingers were cut off, and others their hand were cut off. We saw the bones of the rib cage of one of the children as he got stabbed.
A girl, 10 years old told us that she gave an armed Assad thug “Shabih” all the money they have in their home to save herself from rapping. Three of those children are under 3 years old. The age of most of them range between 10-15 years. 18 of the children were given to their relatives, and we kept the rest in several places of our makeshift clinics. Most of those children lost their parents or members of their families, in the following are the filmed videos of this massacre:
One survived children from the massacre of Karm al-Zeitoun
http://youtu.be/vdC6-ad3RGo
Children were found among died bodies in the massacre of Karm al-Zeitoun
http://youtu.be/Gqq7cgLptUU
http://youtu.be/GsbA9X7quO0
A child talks about the massacre of Karm al-Zeitoun
http://youtu.be/ZQ2g9AK_1Jw
A woman talks about the massacre of Karm al-Zeitoun
http://youtu.be/WU7QctyTpLw
http://youtu.be/oiy3XfWy4R4
A survived child after being stabbed
http://youtu.be/QvvCkySnxq4
Another survived child after being stabbed talks about the massacre
had breathing difficultes during the shelling and firing in the district but her parents couldn’t get her to the hospital
#Syria: Reports of injuries from Mortar shells fired on Karam al Zeitoun residents in Homs. Shrapnel injuries being treated in field hospital. 9/3/20121
Fierce clashes erupt in #Syria
AFP.
March 9, 2012, 9:23 pm
Fierce clashes have erupted between deserters and army troops in the central Syrian province of Homs.
“Heavy clashes were raging at the outskirts of the Rastan and al-Kussair areas between members of the Free Syrian Army and government troops,” said Abu Imad, a Syrian activist based in northern Lebanon, on Friday.
Black smoke could be seen billowing from the border region in northern Lebanon, he said.
The Syrian Local Co-ordination Committees, an opposition group documenting violence across Syria, said Syrian troops were bombarding areas in Karam al-Zeitoun, al-Khalidiyeh and al-Bayada in the restive province.
Activists reported that security forces on Thursday killed 62 people across the country.
They added that the army has sent reinforcements to the northwestern province of Idlib, where activists have been fearing an assault similar to the one that devastated the Baba Amr neighbourhood of Homs.
“Tanks are moving in the village of al-Najia following heavy shelling of the area,” activist Mohamed Abdullah said.
The province, near the Turkish border, is a stronghold for the opposition Free Syrian Army.
News coming out of Syria cannot be verified because journalists are barred from entering restive areas.
Meanwhile, the opposition called for massive protests across the country against calls by the UN-Arab League special envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, for dialogue with the government of President Bashar al-Assad. Annan, a former UN secretary general, was due in Syria on Saturday.
“How can we carry out a dialogue with a regime that is still killing our women and children?” said Omar Homsi, an activist in Homs.
UN humanitarian chief Valerie Amos, who is on a separate mission to Syria, said on Thursday that she was “devastated” by the destruction she had seen in the Baba Amr district.
State-run media said the damage Amos had seen in Homs was carried out by “terrorist gangs”, which the government has been blaming for the unrest in the country since mid-March 2011.
The violence has killed more than 7,500 people, according to UN estimates.
Karam al Zeitoun, Homs, #Syria: Pic taken by @MulhamJundi of what the area looks like now. For more pics updated a few hours ago, click on the picture.
Karam Al Zeitoun, Homs, #Syria: Activist Omar Tellawi, Homs interviewing the head of Omar Ibn Abdulaziz battalion which was formed today and is affiliated to the civilian protection commission.
Brief summary:
The head of the battalion talks about his battalion which includes defectors from the intelligence, army, security and also civilians, all of whom are dedicated to the protection of peaceful civilians who have been systematically targeted by Assad forces throughout the revolution.
They have pledged to fight until the regime falls, which he believes is certain. He advises Assad to leave sooner rather than later. He asks the Arab and Muslim world to support them, even by just praying for them. “We ask for nothing else”, he says, “God is on our side and we shall prevail. Our revolution has been an abandoned orphan from the start and we have no one but God. Every time we expect support from anybody, they fail us. All we ask for now is prayer and we shall prevail because God is on our side.”
#Syria: 13 killed as regime forces surround Homs
Syrian forces killed 13 civilians during shelling in the flashpoint city of Homs as regime forces massed around the city raising fears of an imminent ground attack.
Free Syrian Army fighters stand guard in Idlib, northwestern Syria, near the Turkish border, Photo: AFP
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that three children and a woman were among 13 people who died in “intensive shelling” that targeted the Homs neighbourhood of Baba Amr.
The Khaldiyeh and Karm al-Zaytoun sectors were also blitzed, the Britain-based monitoring group said.
Activists have said that in the past few days the regime has been bolstering its forces outside Homs, apparently to storm the city after 18 straight days of siege.
The Observatory said a military convoy of 56 vehicles, including tanks and personnel carriers, were seen Tuesday travelling on the highway from Damascus, near the town of Qarah, 70 kilometres (38 miles) south of Homs.
It said heavy shelling for two hours early Tuesday of Khaldiyeh and Karm al-Zaytoun later gave way to more sporadic attacks.
Meanwhile, a civilian was killed in gunfire that targeted the town of Al-Atarib, in the northern province of Aleppo, the monitoring group said.
Another civilian was killed and five others wounded, when regime forces opened fire at a small bus in the village of Tronba, in the northwest province of Idlib, it added, bringing the toll of people reportedly killed by regime forces Tuesday to 15.
AFP was not able to verify the reported death toll nor the reports of shelling as foreign reporters are given only limited access within the country.
Rights groups say more than 6,000 people have been killed in the regime’s crackdown on protests against President Bashar al-Assad’s regime that first erupted in march last year.
The Red Cross said Monday it was in talks with the Syrian authorities and rebels to halt the violence so that it can deliver aid, amid calls to allow women and children out of Homs.
Source: AFP
Homs, Karam Al-Zeitoun, #Syria: Activist martyr Saleh Sameer Marjan Al-Abd. He was the photographer in the neighborhood
Activists report ‘terrifying massacre’ in #Syria
BEIRUT (AP) – A “terrifying massacre” in the restive Syrian city of Homs has killed more than 30 people, including small children, in a barrage of mortar fire and attacks by armed forces loyal to President Bashar Assad, activists said Friday.
Details were emerging from an array of residents and activists on Friday, a day after the bloodshed. Residents told The Associated Press they were still gathering information but that the city was rocked by sectarian killings, gunfire and explosions.
“There has been a terrifying massacre,” Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the AP on Friday, calling for an independent investigation of the killings.
Syria tightly controls access to trouble spots and generally allows journalists to report only on escorted trips, which slows the flow of information.
Videos posted online from activists showed the bodies of children wrapped in plastic bags lined up next to each other.
Another video shows women and children with bloodied faces and clothes and in a house, with the narrator saying an entire family with its children had been “slaughtered.”
The videos could not be independently verified.
The Observatory and the Local Coordination Committees, an umbrella group of activists, said the death toll in Homs was at least 35, but the reports could not be confirmed. Both groups cite a network of activists on the ground in Syria.
The Syrian uprising began last March with largely peaceful anti-government protests, but it has grown increasingly militarized in recent months as frustrated regime opponents and army defectors arm themselves and fight back against government forces.
The Observatory said 29 people were killed in the religiously mixed Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood of Homs on Thursday, including eight children, most of them when a building came under heavy mortar and machine gun fire.
Residents spoke of another massacre that took place when shabiha — armed regime loyalists — stormed the district, slaughtering residents in an apartment, including children.
“It’s racial cleansing,” said one resident of Karm el-Zaytoun, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisal. “They are killing people because of their sect,” he said.
Syria has a volatile sectarian divide, making civil unrest one of the most dire scenarios. The Assad regime is dominated by the Alawite minority, an offshoot of Shiite Islam, but the country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim.
Also Friday, Iran’s official IRNA news agency said gunmen in Syria have kidnapped 11 Iranian pilgrims traveling by road from Turkey to Damascus.
Iranian pilgrims routinely visit Syria — Iran’s closest ally in the Arab world — to pay homage to Shiite holy shrines.
The government crackdown has killed more than 5,400 people since March, according to estimates from the United Nations.
Assad’s regime claims terrorists acting out a foreign conspiracy are behind the uprising, not protesters seeking change, and that thousands of security forces have been killed.
International pressure on Damascus to end the bloodshed so far has produced few results.
In a Twitter message, France’s U.N. mission said the Security Council will discuss Syria on Friday during closed consultations.
The Arab League has sent observers to the country as part of a plan to the end the crisis, but the mission has been widely criticized for failing to stop the violence. Gulf states led by Saudi Arabia pulled out of the mission Tuesday, asking the Security Council to intervene because the Syrian government has not halted its crackdown.
In Cairo, Arab League chief Nabil Elaraby told reporters that he and the prime minister of Qatar would leave for New York on Saturday to brief the U.N. Security Council on the latest Arab plan to end the crisis in Syria. He said their talks, to start Monday, are designed to enlist the support of the council for the Arab peace plan.
The plan is a two-month transition to a unity government and includes Assad handing over his powers. Syria has rejected it as intervention in its internal affairs.
