BEIRUT: More than 100 people have been found dead in a town near the Syrian capital of Damascus after a five-day operation to retake the town by regime troops, a watchdog said yesterday.
“There are 101 martyrs who have been identified in Jdaidet Al Fadl, which was taken completely by the army on Sunday. The victims are 10 women, three children and 88 men, including 24 rebels,” Rami Abdel Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said.
On Sunday, the group said it has confirmed the deaths of at least 80 people killed during shelling on the area, fighting and in summary executions.
The organisation distributed several gruesome videos shot by activists showing bodies that bore signs of torture or mutiliation.
An activist in Damascus said on Sunday that all communication, water and electricity had been cut off in Jdaidet Al Fadl, adding that some of the corpses were “found in one of the hospitals” in the town. She said some of the bodies had been beaten, and others burnt.
Since last year, the army has tried to root out rebels positioned southwest and east of Damascus, in a bid to secure the capital.
Syria’s government faced fresh western censure in the wake of opposition claims of hundreds of people killed in a new “massacre” during recent fighting in the Damascus countryside.
William Hague, Britain’s foreign secretary, called reports of the killings a reminder of the “callous brutality” of the Assad regime and “the terrible climate of impunity” in Syria, as well as of the urgent need to end the 25-month conflict which has claimed over 70,000 lives, displaced 2 million Syrians and destabilised the wider region.
But Russia and Iran both expressed firm support for President Bashar Al Assad.
The Local Co-ordination Committees — a network of anti-regime activists — said in a statement that government forces had killed 350 “martyrs” in Artouz, south-west of the capital, on Sunday. Three days earlier 100 people had been killed — a total of 450 dead. The figures could not be independently verified as the area is inaccessible to the handful of foreign journalists and NGOs in Damascus.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some of the victims were summarily killed. Videos posted online showed rows of corpses wrapped in bloody blankets.
Agencies
