A rocket-propelled grenade exploded near a team of UN observers in a Damascus suburb yesterday, the military said, as clashes between regime troops and armed rebels raged in and around the Syrian capital.
Latest violence comes after the G8 nations said a political transition is needed to end the crisis in Syria
No one was hurt in the Douma blast, which came as UN truce mission head Major General Robert Mood and peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous were leading a team of observers around the north Damascus suburb, an AFP correspondent at the scene said.
But elsewhere in the country at least 48 people were killed, including 34 in an assault by Syrian regime forces on a village in central Hama province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
Syrian regime forces rained shells on the village of Souran in Hama, it said, describing the deaths as a “massacre” and urging UN truce observers to deploy immediately in the area.
Mr Ladsous lamented failure by all parties in Syria to respect a UN-backed ceasefire which technically went into effect on April 12, days only before the first UN observers arrived to monitor the truce.
“There is not a ceasefire. But there has been a decrease in the level of violence... in large part thanks to the presence of the UN observers,” Mr Ladsous said.
Fierce clashes between regime troops and rebels determined to oust from power President Bashar al-Assad had been underway in Douma and other parts of the Syrian capital since the early hours of the day, activists said.
The Britain-based Observatory said regime forces shelled the outskirts of Douma overnight with rockets crashing into the suburb during the day. A civilian was also shot dead in Douma by a sniper.
Yesterday’s blast follows several other close calls for the UN monitors since they deployed in Syria. Mood said there were around 260 observers on the ground.
On May 16, a convoy of UN observers was struck by a homemade bomb in the central city of Homs, damaging three vehicles but causing no casualties.
A similar convoy was hit by a roadside bomb on May 9 in the southern province of Daraa, wounding six Syrian soldiers escorting them.
In Hama province “thirty-four people were killed under shelling and gunfire in Souran village while it was being raided,” the Observatory said, adding that children were among the dead.
Elsewhere across the country on 14 other people were killed in violence yesterday, it added.
The latest violence came after the G8 nations said a “political transition” was needed to end the crisis in Syria, where monitors say more than 12,000 people have died in a government crackdown since March 2011.
The AFP correspondent said the streets of Douma were deserted and most of its shops were closed, with pro- and anti-regime graffiti scrawled on the walls.
“When the observers leave, the armed men will come back to cause trouble,” one soldier told reporters at the scene, in a reference to the armed rebels.
Speaking to reporters after the blast, UN peacekeeping chief Ladsous described what he saw of Douma as “a city paralysed.”
“People who cannot go out, who cannot exercise their normal lives, this is simply hard to accept,” he said.
Fighting also erupted during the night in the Kafr Sousa district of south Damascus, according to the Observatory, adding there were clashes in other parts of the capital which rang out with gunfire during the night.