Syria: UN monitors report 'smell of burnt flesh'

Observers visit site of reported massacre, say body parts lay scattered around deserted village

Associated Press|Published: 06.08.12 , 23:58

The smell of burnt flesh hung in the air and body parts lay scattered around the deserted Syrian hamlet of Mazraat al-Qubeir on Friday, UN monitors said after visiting the site where 78 people were reported massacred two days ago.

The alleged killing spree on Wednesday underlined how little outside powers, divided and pursuing their own interests in the Middle East, have been able to do to stop increasing carnage in the 15-month-old uprising against President Bashar Assad.

A day after Syrian armed forces and villagers had turned them back, the unarmed UN monitors reached the farming settlement of Mazraat al-Qubeir, finding it deserted but bearing signs of deadly violence.

One house was damaged by rocket fire and bullets, UN spokeswoman Sausan Ghosheh said. Another was burnt, with bodies still inside. "You could smell dead bodies and you could also see body parts in and around the village," Ghosheh told reporters after returning to Damascus.

BBC reporter Paul Danahar, who accompanied the monitors, said it was clear "terrible crime" had taken place.

In one house he saw "pieces of brains lying on the floor. There was a tablecloth covered in blood and flesh and someone had tried to mop the blood up by pushing it into the corner, but seems they had given up because there was so much of it around".

Tank tracks found

Danahar's Twitter report added: "What we didn't find were any bodies of people. What we did find were tracks on the tarmac (that) the UN said looked like armoured personnel carriers or tanks."

Ghosheh said Mazraat al-Qubeir, which has a population of around 150 people, was empty on Friday, but people from neighboring villages arrived to give their accounts.

"The information was a little bit conflicting. We need to go back, cross-reference what we have heard, and check the names they say were killed, check the names they say are missing".

Many Syrian civilians are fleeing their homes to escape widening fighting between security forces and rebels, the Red Cross said, while the outside world seems unable to craft an alternative to envoy Kofi Annan's failing peace plan.

"Some say that the plan may be dead," Annan said before meeting US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in Washington.

"Is the problem the plan or the problem is implementation?" he asked. "If it's implementation, how do we get action on that? And if it is the plan, what other options do we have?"

'Shot, stabbed or burned alive'

Activists said at least 78 people were shot, stabbed or burned alive in Mazraat al-Qubeir, a Sunni Muslim hamlet, by forces loyal to Assad, whose minority Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shi'ite Islam, has dominated Syria for decades.

Syrian authorities have condemned the killings in Mazraat al-Qubeir and another massacre of civilians in Houla two weeks ago, blaming them on "terrorists".

The conflict has become increasingly sectarian. Shabbiha militiamen from the Alawite community appear to be off the leash, targeting Sunni civilians almost regardless of their part in the uprising.

Opposition activists said those killed in Mazraat al-Qubeir had not previously been caught up in the conflict.

Elsewhere, government forces shelled and then tried to storm the rebel-held district of Khalidiya in the central city of Homs, the heart of the revolt against Assad, the British-based Observatory said. Other residential areas came under the security forces' fire as well.