DAMASCUS: Troops pounded besieged districts of the flashpoint city of Homs as 15 people were killed in violence across Syria yesterday, taking the weekend death toll to 84, a watchdog said.
“Around 85 percent of Homs is now under shelling or bombardment with mortar rounds and heavy machine guns,” Abu Imad, an opposition campaigner, said. “Dozens of wounded are without treatment because all the hospitals have fallen under the control of Shabiha. The dead are the lucky ones,” he said, referring to the regime militia, known as Shabiha.
A civilian was killed in the rebel stronghold of Khalidiyeh, which, like other parts of the central city, was “being shelled since this morning and shot at by regime forces who have been trying to take control of these districts,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
A rebel fighter was killed in a clash with regime troops in the Karm Shamsham neighborhood of Homs, while another man was shot dead by a sniper in the Old City.
Speaking to AFP via Skype from the Old City neighborhood, activist Abu Bilal said the regime siege of several parts of the city was “suffocating.” “They are shelling us all the time. There's very little food and water, and we're running out of medication.”
Video posted on YouTube by activists showed clouds of black and grey smoke rising over buildings in the Old City, as the sound of shelling and shooting ripped through the silence of what appeared to be a ghost town.
Abu Bilal, reiterated warnings by the opposition and rights watchdogs, said people trapped in the city “will be massacred” if regime forces enter the encircled districts. Amateur video posted on YouTube by activists in the surrounded Homs district of Jourat Al-Shiah showed widespread destruction, deserted streets and parts of a building shelled and on fire. “We don't have any milk for the children, nor water, nor electricity,” a woman whose house was destroyed tells the unidentified cameraman.
“We are not scared. We don't want weapons or money. We just want a way to get our children out of here,” says the mother of two. The Observatory has said that more than 1,000 families were trapped in Homs, adding that there was a lack of medical staff and equipment. Elsewhere in the country, a civilian was shot dead by a sniper at Khan Sheikhun in the northwestern province of Idlib, the Observatory said.
Troops, meanwhile, shelled the village of Abyan in the northern Aleppo, killing a man, while another man died in the town of Andan. Regime forces have been trying to take over Andan from rebel fighters, who are in turn “resisting fiercely,” the Observatory said.
Battered Homs pounded again
