Yasser Abed Rabbo
Photo: Ori Porat
'Heavy machinegun fire.' Latakia
Photo: AFP
PLO slams Syrian 'crimes against humanity'
Yasser Abed Rabbo blasts shelling of Palestinian refugee camp in Latakia, 'taking place using gunships and tanks on houses built from tin, on people who have no place to run to or even a shelter to hide in'
An assault by Syrian security forces on a Palestinian refugee camp in the coastal city of Latakia amounts to a crime against humanity, a senior official in the Palestine Liberation Organization said.
"The shelling is taking place using gunships and tanks on houses built from tin, on people who have no place to run to or even a shelter to hide in," Yasser Abed Rabbo, the PLO secretary general, told Reuters. "This is a crime against humanity."
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UNRWA, the United Nations agency that cares for Palestinian refugees, said on Monday that between 5,000 and 10,000 people had fled the al-Raml refugee camp in Latakia.
Escaping Violence
Associated Press
More than 5,000 Palestinian refugees flee camp in besieged Syrian city of Latakia after Assad's forces shell city during broad military assault
Meanwhile Syrian tanks opened fire on poor Sunni districts and Palestinian areas in Latakia on Tuesday, residents said, the fourth day of a military assault on the northern port city aimed at crushing protests.
"Heavy machinegun fire and explosions were hitting al-Raml al-Filistini (home to Palestinian refugees) and al-Shaab this morning. This subsided and now there is the sound of intermittent tank fire," one of the residents, who lives near the two districts of Latakia, told Reuters by telephone.
The Syrian Revolution Coordinating Union, a grassroots activists' group, said six people, including Ahmad Soufi, 22, were killed in Latakia on Monday, bringing the civilian death toll there to 34, including a two-year-old girl.
The crackdown coincided with the Aug. 1 start of the Muslim Ramadan fast, when nightly prayers became the occasion for more protests against over four decades of Baathist party rule.
Syrian forces have already stormed Hama, scene of a 1982 massacre by the military, the eastern city of Deir al-Zor, the southern city of Deraa and several northwestern towns in a province bordering Turkey.
"The regime seems intent on breaking the bones of the uprising across the country this week, but the people are not backing down. Demonstrations in Deir al-Zor are regaining momentum," one activist in the city said.
The Assads have been repeatedly warned by the United States, European Union and Turkey but the government is signaling to its legion of critics abroad that it will not bow to calls for change that have swept across the Arab world, and to its people that it is prepared to wade through blood to stay in power.
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