Monitors reach site of alleged Syria massacre
Journalists travelling with UN team see evidence but no bodies
UN monitors in Syria investigating a massacre in Hama province reached the site of the reported atrocity Friday after troops and government supporters had blocked the visit for more than 24 hours.
Journalists travelling with the monitor team said they saw chilling evidence of bloody multiple killings but no bodies.
Correspondents for the BBC and NPR told of finding pieces of what seemed to be human flesh, a tablecloth “filled with gore,” burned-out buildings and at least one dead donkey in the farm hamlet of Mazraat al-Qubair, where, according to activist accounts, as many as 78 peo- ple, half of them women and children, were slaughtered Wednesday. The BBC correspondent, Paul Danahar, said villagers who approached the monitors blamed pro-government militiamen, known as shabiha, for the killings, and said the militants had trucked the bodies away. Another said sticks had been used to kill children. “This has basically been a scorched-earth policy by whoever this was — they’ve killed the people, they’ve killed the livestock, they’ve left nothing in the village alive,” Danahar said in an audio recording posted on the BBC website. It was unclear when the team of 20 monitors sent to Mazraat alQubair would present their findings publicly. The monitor trip came as a surge of violence was reported in multiple places around Syria on Friday and as international diplomacy intensified in attempts to find a way out of the 16-month-old conflict, which top officials of the UN and Arab League said Thursday was rapidly escalating into a sectarian civil war. The Friday mayhem included clashes between troops and activists in at least one restive district of Damascus. The Associated Press, quoting witness accounts, said explosions could be heard in the centre of the capital.
Syrian officials, denying that a massacre took place in Qubair, have said nine people were killed by terrorists, the government’s term for political opponents.