Global Arab Network | Syria: Security Forces kill at least 25 protesters, hide dead bodies

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Syria: Security Forces kill at least 25 protesters, hide dead bodies

Global Arab Network - - George Haddad

Thursday, 24 March 2011 11:43

Syrian_Army_kills_at_least_25_protesters_hide_dead_bodies

Syria (Daraa ) - The main hospital in Daraa has received the bodies of at least 25 protesters who died by security forces, according to a hospital official.

In Youtube video, Mohamed Ali a witnesses said : “We cant know how many protesters killed, as security forces and Mukhabarat kill and collect dead bodies from street to hide its crime acts”

Syrian police and army opened fire on people protesting against the deaths of anti-government demonstrators in Deraa, witnesses say.

Hundreds of youths from nearby villages were shot at when they tried to march into the centre of the southern city.

"We received them at 5pm local time on Wednesday (1500 GMT). They all had bullet holes," hospital official told Reuters on Thursday.

The AP news agency quoted an activist as saying that some residents of the southern town are holding a sit-in to protest the killings.

The activist, who is in contact with residents in Daraa, said the situation is still tense, with a heavy presence of security forces in the streets.

A Syrian human rights activist told the BBC that at least 37 had died.

Troops also reportedly shot at people attending the funerals of six people killed in a raid on a mosque overnight.

Before the violence on Wednesday afternoon, at least 12 people had been killed in clashes with the security forces in the southern city.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has called for a "transparent investigation" and for those responsible to be held accountable.

The US state department has said it is "deeply concerned by the Syrian government's use of violence, intimidation and arbitrary arrests to hinder the ability of its people to freely exercise their universal rights".

Hundreds of people had gathered in the streets around the Omari mosque - a focal point for anti-government protests since Friday - to prevent security forces personnel deployed in the old quarter from storming it.

Witnesses said that shortly after midnight, the local power supply was cut and police began to fire live ammunition and tear gas at the protesters.

One human rights activist told BBC Arabic that there was a "massacre" of "innocent, defenceless and peaceful citizens, who are staging peaceful sit-ins, and who don't even have stones to defend themselves with".

Earlier, human rights activists said at least 15 people have been killed in Daraa.

Residents said security forces shot and killed six people including a doctor who was giving aid to the injured at the Omari mosque, where most of the protests took place.

A rights activist also told AFP news agency that security forces had opened fire on mourners attending the funeral of those killed in Daraa.

Meanwhile, pro-democracy demonstrators in Syria have called for mass protests across the country on Friday.

Activists used social-networking sites to call for the protests, which they dubbed as "Dignity Friday."

Syrian state TV said an armed gang was operating from the mosque and showed what it said were weapons and ammunition stored there. It also alleged that the gang had "kidnapped children and used them as human shields".

It said security forces had killed four members of the gang.

Later, witnesses told the Associated Press that the body of a 12-year-old girl had been found, that a man was shot dead at a funeral of one of those killed outside the mosque, and that four bodies were seen near the offices of a security agency. The reports could not be confirmed. (Reuters, AP, AFP, BBC, SyrianTV, Youtube, Others)

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