A handout picture released by the Syrian opposition's Shaam News network shows an anti-regime demonsration in the Damascus suburb of Duma on April 17, 2012.
AFP / Getty Images
(UNITED NATIONS) — U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon says U.N. monitors were shot at trying to get to the scene of the latest Syrian massacre.
The U.N. chief told the General Assembly on Thursday that the unarmed observers were initially denied access to the scene in central Hama and "were shot at with small arms" while trying to get there. He did not mention any casualties.
Ban said each day in Syria sees more "grim atrocities" and for many months it has been evident that President Bashar Assad and his government "have lost all legitimacy."
Ban said any regime that tolerates killings such as last month's massacre of more than 100 civilians in Houla and Wednesday's attack in Hama "has lost its fundamental humanity," and he condemned "this unspeakable barbarity."
Syria denied the opposition claims as "absolutely baseless." Syrian state TV denied obstructing the observers work and said the monitors had successfully reached Mazraat al-Qubair — a farming area in the central Hama province and site of the latest killings.
The reports came just weeks after more than 100 people were killed in one day in a cluster of villages known as Houla in central Homs province, many of them children and women gunned down in their homes. U.N. investigators blamed pro-government gunmen for at least some of the killings, but the Syrian regime denied responsibility and blamed rebels for the deaths. (MORE: U.S., Allies Agree to Transition Plan for Syria)
The Houla massacre brought international outrage and a coordinated expulsion of Syrian diplomats from world capitals.
A resident of Mazraat al-Qubair said troops shelled the area for five hours Wednesday before government-aligned militiamen known as shabiha entered the area, "killing and hacking everyone they could find."
Leith Al-Hamwy told The Associated Press by telephone that he survived by hiding in an olive grove about 800 meters from the farms as the killings were taking place. But he said his mother and six siblings, the youngest 10-year-old twins, did not. "When I came out of hiding and went inside the houses, I saw bodies everywhere. Entire families either shot or killed with sharp sticks and knives," he said.
Al-Hamwy said the gunmen set his family home on fire and his family burned to death. Around 80 people in total died, he said, many of them children, and 18 homes were either destroyed by the shelling or burned down.
Syria's main opposition group in exile, the Syrian National Council, also said 78 people were killed in Mazraat al-Qubair when government-aligned militiamen converged on the village from neighboring pro-regime villages. Some of the dead were killed execution-style, others were slain with knives, the SNC said. It said 35 of the dead were from the same family and more than half of them were women and children. "Women and children were burned inside their homes in al-Qubair," said Mousab Alhamadee, an activist based in Hama.
Gen. Robert Mood, the head of the observers mission in Syria, said U.N. patrols headed to the village of were stopped at Syrian army checkpoints and in some cases turned back. He said some patrols were also stopped by civilians and added they had received information from residents of the area that the safety of observers was at risk if they entered the village. (MORE: U.N. Warns of Full Civil War in Syria)
The mission "is concerned about the restriction imposed on its movement as it will impede our ability to monitor, observe and report," Mood said in a statement.
The exact death toll and circumstances of the killings overnight in Mazraat al-Qubair were impossible to confirm. The violence is bound to reinforce the growing belief that a peace plan brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan is unraveling as the country spirals toward civil war.
Both Homs and Hama have been centers of opposition to Assad's rule during the 15-month uprising.
Al-Qubair is a small farm in the overwhelmingly Sunni village of Maarzaf around 20 kilometers (12 miles) west of the city of Hama with around 30 homes and around 160 inhabitants. Activists said the Sunni village is surrounded by a string of Alawite villages. Alawites are an offshoot of Shiite Islam and Assad is a member of the sect, while the opposition is dominated by Sunnis.
Attempts to reach more eyewitnesses and residents of the area was difficult, making the verification of what went on extremely difficult. The Syrian government keeps tight restrictions on journalists.
