Syria deaths climb despite Arab League observers

At least 68 civilians have been killed by security forces since a first group of monitors arrived Monday in Syria for a month-long renewable mission amid international fears that authorities will hinder their work.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 14 civilians were killed on Wednesday by regime forces in several flashpoints areas, including a five-year-old boy who died in the restive city of Homs.

Activists emboldened by the presence of the monitors have meanwhile called for massive anti-regime rallies across the country on Friday, the weekly day of rest that has been a pivotal time for democracy protests.

“On Friday we will march to the squares of freedom, bare-chested,” Facebook activists said in a statement on the Internet.

“We will march as we did in Homs and Hama where we carried olive branches only to be confronted by Bashar's gangs who struck us with artillery and machinegun fire,” said the Syria Revolution 2011 activists.

France, the United States and Human Rights Watch have warned the Syrian regime against trying to hide the facts from the monitors and Paris charged the team was not being allowed to see what was happening in Homs.

Those concerns were highlighted when Baba Amro residents on Wednesday refused to allow in observers in because they were accompanied by a Syrian army officer. But the standoff ended when the officer withdrew.

On Tuesday, some 70,000 people flooded the streets of Homs as observers entered parts of the restive city, activists said, adding that Syrian forces used tear gas and live ammunition to disperse the protesters.

The rallies took place a day after 34 civilians were killed by security forces in Bab Amro neighborhood, said activists, who also reported 20 civilians deaths on Tuesday in various parts of Syria.

“The Arab League's initiative is the only ray of light that we now see,” the Observatory's chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP on Thursday.

“The presence of the observers in Homs broke the barrier of fear,” he added.

On Thursday monitors were to tour the northern provinces of Idlib and Hama as well as Daraa further south, where unprecedented pro-reform protests erupted in mid-March, the head of the mission said.

They would also visit a flashpoint district around the capital Damascus, General Mohammed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, a veteran Sudanese military intelligence officer, told AFP on Wednesday.

Dabi has described the visit to Homs as “good” and said Syrian authorities so far have been cooperating with the monitors.

His remarks reportedly triggered ripples of discontent among opposition ranks but Abdel Rahman said it was too early to issue any judgment.

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