Rights Group: At Least 109 Killed Thursday in and around Hama
At least 109 people were killed on Thursday in and around the Syrian flashpoint protest city of Hama, CNN quoted a global activist group as saying.
"The brutality continues in Hama on the fourth day of Ramadan. Communication with the city and surrounding area is very difficult as the electricity supply has been cut off," the Avaaz non-governmental organization said.
"However, Avaaz has been in touch with a medical source who confirms that 109 people have been killed since the early hours of this morning. Avaaz has been told that scores more have been injured and bodies are lying in the streets as ambulances and private vehicles are unable to get through."
Citing the medical source, Avaaz said the bodies transported to Al-Hourani Hospital had been shot at close range, mostly in the head.
“The geographic breakdown is 48 dead in the town of Hay al-Hadir, 31 in Janoub al-Manaab, and 30 in the northern part of Hama and the Hamidia area,” according to Avaaz.
Earlier on Thursday a witness told Agence France Presse by phone that at least 30 people were killed in Hama on Wednesday as security forces stormed the flashpoint protest center.
A Hama resident who managed to escape the city said Thursday that "the bodies of 30 people who were killed during shelling by the army have been buried in several public parks."
The witness, who declined to be identified for security reasons, said scores of people were being treated in hospitals for injuries and that fires broke out in several buildings.
"Tanks are deployed throughout the city, particularly in Assi Square and citadel and outside the citadel," he said about landmarks in the city center of Hama.
The source charged that "yesterday (Wednesday) the Syrian army used bombs that break up into fragments when they explode," in a likely reference to cluster bombs.
The city echoed with the intermittent sound of machine gun fire on Thursday morning, after intense shelling the previous day, the witness said, adding "snipers were positioned on the roofs of private hospitals."
"Conditions are very difficult in the city. Communications, electricity and water are cut and there are food shortages," he added.
In Deir Ezzor, meanwhile, "private hospitals and pharmacies have shut down after doctors walked out because they are afraid that the army could storm them as part of a military operation which is expected to target” the eastern city, said Rami Abdul Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Source: Agence France Presse
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