BEIRUT: United Nations observers found blood, burned homes and signs of artillery fire in the Syrian village of Tremseh on Saturday but were unable to confirm activists’ reports that about 220 people were massacred in an attack that prompted international outrage.
The United States has branded Syria’s leaders murderers after the assault by Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s troops, but there was no break in the deadlock among world powers over how to bring about an end to the bloodshed.
Syria earlier rejected allegations of a massacre and said the attack on Thursday was a successful military operation that killed a large number of “terrorists” but no civilians.
A statement by the U.N. mission in Damascus said observers were unable to confirm the death toll or number of casualties but would return for further investigations
“The attack on Tremseh appeared targeted at specific groups and houses, mainly of army defectors and activists,” the spokesman for the U.N. observer mission to Syria said in an emailed statement. “A wide range of weapons were used, including artillery, mortars and small arms.”
Opposition activists say government forces killed about 220 people in the village. U.N. observers said they had found a burned school and fire-damaged houses.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had already condemned what a U.N. reconnaissance mission on Friday said was “indiscriminate” bombardment of the central Hama province village, including rocket-firing helicopters. He questioned Assad’s commitment to a U.N.-sponsored peace plan for Syria.
The bloodshed continued on Saturday, when British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 33 people were killed, several by an army bombardment in Homs province. (Reuters)
