Syria Army Pounds Homs after 79 Killed Nationwide

The Syrian army kept up its bombardment of rebel neighborhoods of the central city of Homs on Monday, activists said, after 79 people were killed in violence across the country the previous day.

Thirty-eight civilians, six of them children, were among Sunday's dead, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The violence also claimed the lives of 13 rebel fighters and 28 government troops, the Britain-based watchdog added.

An activist in Homs told Agence France Presse via Skype that many civilians remained trapped in the shelling of the Jourat al-Shiah, Khalidiyeh and Old City neighborhoods of Syria's third-largest city.

"Many neighborhoods of Homs are still under siege, and it is really hard for us to get food or medicines in," said Khaled al-Tellawy.

"Field doctors are amputating the limbs of the injured because they have no equipment to treat them with, and they can't be smuggled out."

The besieged neighborhoods of Homs are among a string of areas that have fallen into the effective control of rebel fighters, the Observatory said.

More than 15,800 people have been killed in the violence since the uprising against President Bashar Assad's rule erupted in March last year, according to the watchdog's figures.