BEIRUT – Syrian troops fired on mourners at a funeral and raided an eastern city Sunday, killing at least 59 people in an intensifying government crackdown on protesters that defies an international chorus of condemnation.
More than 300 people have died in the past week, the bloodiest in the five-month uprising against authoritarian President Bashar Assad. Not all were killed by bullets or tank shells: In the besieged city of Hama, where the government has cut off electricity and communications, a rights group said eight babies died because their incubators lost power.
Sunday’s worst violence was in the eastern city of Deir el-Zour, where at least 42 people were killed.
“The city was bombed by all types of heavy weapons and machine gun fire before troops started entering,” an activist in the city said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
“Humanitarian conditions in the city are very bad because it has been under siege for nine days,” the activist said. “There is lack of medicine, baby formula, food and gasoline. The city is totally paralyzed.”
The government’s crackdown on mostly peaceful, unarmed protesters demanding political reforms and an end to the Assad family’s 40-year rule has left more than 1,700 dead since March, according to activists and human rights groups. Assad’s regime disputes the toll and blames a foreign conspiracy for the unrest, which at times has brought hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets.
In this image from television on Thursday and released by the Syrian official news agency SANA, empty streets with debris are shown of what SANA describes as the Syrian army restoring “security and stability” to the central city of Hama, Syria. (AP)
