Damascus: Snipers and security forces
killed five civilians on Thursday in Syria`s flashpoint province of
Homs, activists said as the EU announced plans to slap new
sanctions on the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.
The latest bloodletting came as US President Barack
Obama called on the UN Security Council to impose sanctions on
Syria in a speech at the General Assembly in New York.
And in Geneva the Office of the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human Rights said the death toll from the
regime`s bloody crackdown on protesters since mid-March rose
to more than 2,700 people.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, quoting
residents, said snipers shot dead a man in the Baba Amro
neighbourhood of the city of Homs and killed another in the
town of Rastan, in the central province.
A man and a woman were also shot dead by security
forces in the city of Homs, where a man who died on Wednesday
of his injuries, while a 24-year-old hit by a bullet bled to
death in Talbisseh in the same province, it said.
Meanwhile, "security forces arrested three wounded
people in a Homs hospital and took them to an unknown
destination," the Observatory said.
And the body of a young man was found Wednesday in
Al-Huweiz village, in Hama province further north, "days after
he was arrested by security forces," it added.
The bodies of two other men were handed over to
relatives Wednesday in the northwestern province of Idlib,
where army and security troops have been conducting
operations, it said.
Activists meanwhile reported that security forces
arrested prominent dissident lawyer Imad Drubi today inside
the main Homs courthouse.
Bureau Report
