Updated on
Summary At least 50 people were killed as Syrian regime forces rained shells on village of Souran in Hama.
Nearly 50 people were killed on Sunday in violence across Syria, including 34 civilians who died in an assault in the restive central Hama province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.Syrian regime forces rained shells on the village of Souran in Hama, it said, describing the deaths as a massacre and urging UN truce observers to deploy immediately in the area.Thirty-four people were killed under shelling and gunfire in Souran village while it was being raided, the Britain-based watchdog said, revising up an earlier toll of 16 people killed, including three children.Where are the international monitors, read a statement issued by the Observatory.We in the Observatory express our extreme shock at the international monitors failure to go to Souran when we issued our first statement on the killing 16 people, the statement added.Elsewhere in the country another 14 people were killed in violence, the watchdog said, adding that anti-regime demonstrations were also held in several areas of Syria on Sunday.The dead included a civilian killed by gunfire from regime forces who raided the village of Hasraya in Hama, one killed in Homs and two others in northern Aleppo, the Observatory said.In Basra al-Sham city of southern Daraa province, an army defector was killed in an overnight ambush by regime forces, the group said.In Jisr al-Shughur in northwest Idlib, a flashpoint of unrest, armed men assassinated a Baath party official, the monitor said, amid a marked increase of assassinations targeting people associated with the regime.There is definitely an increase in assassinations targeting people associated with the regime, be they officials or pro-regime businessmen, Observatory head Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP in Beirut by telephone.In Idlib city, a defector was killed during clashes with regime forces.Two civilians were also killed in the Damascus northern suburb of Douma, including one shot dead by snipers just after a group of UN truce monitors had visited the area, according to the Observatory.Five regime troops were also killed on Sunday, the watchdog added.It also reported demonstrations in several areas of northwest Idlib and in Hama calling for the ouster of President Bashar al-Assads regime.
