Calls mount for urgent world action on Syria after massacre

Calls mounted Saturday for the international community to take urgent action on Syria after reports of a horrific massacre by regime forces that killed dozens of people, including many children.

Britain said it was in urgent talks with allied countries on “a strong international response” while France said it was making plans to host a “Friends of Syria” meeting following the latest deadly violence.

UN monitors said the bodies of more than 90 people were found in the town of Houla after activists reported a massacre by President Bashar al-Assad’s forces, one of the bloodiest episodes in the 14 months since his regime launched a brutal crackdown on opponents.

The UN mission chief in Syria, Major General Robert Mood, condemned what he described as a “brutal tragedy” in Houla, where he said 92 bodies, including those of more than 32 children, had been counted.

“Those using violence for their own agendas will create more instability, more unpredictability and may lead the country to civil war,” Mood told reporters in Damascus, describing the violence as “indiscriminate and disproportionate.”

Amateur videos posted on YouTube, apparently from Houla in Homs province, showed horrifying images of children lying dead on a floor. Some were badly mangled, with at least one child’s head partly blown away.

“We are consulting urgently with our allies on a strong international response, including at the UN Security Council, the EU and UN human rights bodies,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said in a statement.

He said London will seek an urgent session of the Security Council in coming days, Hague said, in response to “credible and horrific reports that a large number of civilians have been massacred” by Syrian forces in Houla.

“Our urgent priority is to establish a full account of this appalling crime and to move swiftly to ensure that those responsible are identified and held to account,” he said.

Hague called for the Syrian regime to cease all military operations in accordance with a peace plan brokered by UN special envoy Kofi Annan, and to allow monitors “full and immediate access” to Houla and other conflict areas.

The rebel Free Syrian Army said after the killings that it was no longer committed to the UN-backed peace plan for Syria unless there was prompt UN intervention to protect civilians.

The plan drawn up by UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan technically began on April 12, but violence and bloodshed have not stopped and a ceasefire that formed part of the plan has been breached daily.

France’s new Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius said he was making immediate arrangements for the Friends of Syria nations — which include Britain but not key UN players China and Russia — to meet in Paris.

“I condemn the atrocities committed daily by Bashar al-Assad on his own people,” Fabius said. With these new crimes his murderous regime plunges Syria further into horror and threatens regional stability.”

Fabius said he would speak to Annan on Sunday, adding: “In the face of horror, the international community must mobilise still further to stop the martyrdom of the Syrian people.”

German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle said he was “shocked and horrified” at the killings.

“It is appalling that the Syrian regime does not put an end to the brutal violence against its own people,” Westerwelle said in a statement. “Those responsible for this crime must be punished.”

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