Security forces raided homes across Syria, arresting regime opponents, as funerals were held Sunday for people killed in a bloody crackdown on protests, activists said.
Students meanwhile called for a strike and two MPs resigned after at least 13 mourners were shot dead Saturday when Syrians swarmed the streets to bury scores of demonstrators killed in protests the previous day. At least 120 people were killed in a two-day crackdown by Syrian security forces against protesters, a group of activists said on Sunday.
The Committee of the Martyrs of the 15 March Revolution issued an updated list of names of 95 people it said were killed on Friday in massive protests which swept across Syria. An earlier toll from the pro-democracy protest movement had put the figure at 82 dead in Friday’s “massacre” but cautioned the number could top 100 as it worked to confirm more deaths. Before Friday, security forces and plainclothes police had already killed about 220 protesters, according to Amnesty International.
Friday’s toll was the deadliest for a single day since at least 100 were killed in Daraa on March 23, following the March 15 outbreak of pro-democracy demonstrations in Syria. Meanwhile, thousands of Syrians called for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday at a funeral for protesters killed by security forces in the southern town of Nawa, a witness said. “Long live Syria. Down with Bashar!” the mourners chanted, their calls audible in a telephone call during the funeral. “Leave, leave. The people want the overthrow of the regime”.
Activists described Friday’s killings as a turning point which exposed the hollowness of Assad’s announcement that he was lifting a 48-year state of emergency and abolishing a hated state security court. International condemnation of Assad has also intensified. Western criticism was initially muted because of lingering hopes that Assad might implement genuine reform and because revolution in Syria would reshape the political map in the Middle East. “I deplore the increasing violence in Syria, and am appalled by the killing of demonstrators by Syrian security forces,” British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Sunday, advising all British nationals to leave Syria.
EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton echoed world leaders calling the crackdown “intolerable,” and even Syria ally Russia urged Damascus to speed up reform. The weekend protests stretched from the port city of Latakia to Homs, Hama, Damascus, its suburbs and southern towns. The death toll rose to around 350, with scores of missing since the demonstrations broke out on March 18, rights campaigners said. An eminent jurists’ group said on Sunday the United Nations Security Council must investigate “mass killings” by the security forces which it said may warrant prosecution by the International Criminal Court.
