Children Slaughtered in Government Attack on Syrian Town

The United Nations has confirmed that 32 children and nearly twice as many adults were killed after Syrian government forces attacked the western town of Houla. Locals are furious that U.N. observers, deployed to monitor a cease-fire between officials and the opposition, did not intervene. —ARK

BBC:

Activists say some of the victims died by shelling, while others were summarily executed, or butchered by the regime militia known as the “shabiha”.

… Fighting in Syria has continued despite the deployment of some 250 UN observers monitoring a cease-fire brokered by UN envoy Kofi Annan - a ceasefire which the BBC’s Jim Muir in neighbouring Lebanon says is now “pretty fictional”.

… Horrific video footage has emerged from Houla of dozens of dead children, covered in blood, their arms and legs strewn over one another. It is unverified, but our correspondent says such images would be difficult to fake.

Read more

FreedomHouse (CC BY 2.0)

A young girl offers a peace sign during an anti-Assad protest in Binnish, Syria, in mid-April.