Syrian security forces killed at least 35 people yesterday as they pursued a crackdown on pro-democracy protesters after activists called for a no-fly zone to protect civilians and soldiers deserting the army, a rights group said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said all the fatalities, except for one, were in Hama, in the north, and Homs in the centre, and that security forces encircled mosques to prevent protesters from demonstrating after the weekly Muslim prayers.
Syrian forces fired live rounds to disperse protesters, killing at least 35, wounding more than 100 and arresting 500 across the country, the Britain-based Observatory said.
“Twelve civilians were killed in various neighbourhoods of Hama, 20 others in the city of Homs and one civilian was killed in Qusayr, in the region of Homs,” the Observatory said.
Two civilians were also killed and 10 wounded by security forces in Tsil, in the southern province of Daraa, cradle of more than seven months of anti-regime dissent, the group said.
Hama and Homs are at the front line of the anti-regime protests that have rocked Syria since mid-March, since when the UN estimates more than 3,000 people, mostly civilians, have been killed in the bloody repression.
The army has been carrying out operations in Qusayr for several weeks, amid fighting there bet-ween troops and suspected army deserters, activists say.
The Observatory’s chief Rami Abdel Rahman said in Nicosia that Homs has seen the “highest number of martyrs to date” since the protest movement unfolded. “Homs has given 40 per cent of the martyrs of the Syrian revolution,” he said. The violence was the deadliest in nearly six months to occur on a Friday, the day worshippers emerging from weekly prayers at mosques defy the security forces and swarm the streets to rally against the regime.
The previous high was on May 6, when 36 died. The worst was on April 22, when toll reached 72.
Each Friday protesters rally around a theme. This time they demanded the imposition of a no-fly zone to protect civilians and to encourage soldiers to defect – like the UN-mandated no-fly zone over Libya that led to the demise of dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
“We call on the international community to impose a no-fly zone so that the Syrian Free Army can function with greater freedom,” the Syrian Revolution 2011, one of the motors behind the dissent, said on its Facebook page.
A defecting army officer who has taken refuge in Turkey, Colonel Riad al-Asaad, claimed in July to have established an opposition armed force called the “Syrian Free Army,” but its strength and numbers are unknown.