Peace envoy Kofi Annan deplored the killing of at least 108 people in the Syrian town of Houla as “an appalling crime” yesterday and urged President Bashar al-Assad to prove he wants a peaceful resolution to the crisis in his country.

Mr Assad’s forces killed at least 41 people in an artillery assault on the city of Hama, activists said, shortly after the UN Security Council condemned Friday’s massacre in nearby Houla.

With international criticism growing of Mr Assad’s methods in trying to crush the 14-month-old uprising, now accompanied by a lightly armed insurgency, UN and Arab League envoy Annan visited Damascus for talks on his faltering peace plan.

He explicitly urged the Syrian government to “take bold steps to signal that it is serious in its intention to resolve this crisis peacefully” before adding: “This message of peace is not only for the government, but for everyone with a gun.”

Russia and China, which had previously vetoed UN resolutions condemning Mr Assad, both approved a non-binding text in New York on Sunday that criticised the use of artillery and tank shells on homes in Houla – weapons the rebels do not have.

China said it was “deeply shocked by the large number of civilian casualties in Houla, and condemns in the strongest terms the cruel killings of ordinary citizens, especially women and children”.

But by declining to blame the government alone, Russia and China kept their distance from Western and Sunni-led Arab countries that say Mr Assad must step down.

UN monitors say at least 108 people were killed in Houla, among them dozens of children.

But many of the victims were also hacked to death or shot at close range, as shown in graphic images distributed by activists, and UN monitors were unable to establish conclusively who killed these.