Hundreds of families on
Monday fled Syria's restive city of Homs following reports of a
"massacre" there of dozens of women and children, the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said.
Hadi Abdallah, a Syrian
activist in the central city, told AFP the bodies of 26 children and 21 women,
some with their throats slit and others bearing stab wounds, were found in the
Karm Az-Zaytoun and Al-Adawiyeh neighborhoods of the besieged central city.
"Hundreds of families
fled Homs overnight, notably from the Karm Az-Zaytoun neighborhood, for fear of
new massacres by regime forces," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the
Britain-based group.
The main opposition group,
the Syrian National Council (SNC), called for an emergency UN Security Council
meeting to discuss the "massacre", which it said took place on
Sunday.
"The Syrian National
Council is making the necessary contacts with all organizations and countries
that are friends with the Syrian people for the UN Security Council to hold an
emergency meeting," the SNC said in a statement.
However Syrian state
television attributed the killings to "armed terrorist gangs", saying
they had kidnapped residents of Homs, killed them and then made video footage
of the bodies in an attempt to discredit Syrian forces.
News of the killings came
as UN-Arab League peace envoy Kofi Annan left Damascus on Sunday without
managing to secure an accord to end bloodletting in Syria, where the UN reports
more than 7,500 people have died since the revolt against President Bashar
al-Assad erupted a year ago.
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