Fighting rages on in Syria, bodies found

7 Sep 2012, 8:54 pm   -   Source: AAP

As the Syrian regime continues to fight rebels across Damascus, activists say residents have found 45 bodies in two towns.

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Syrian government forces have shelled the southern outskirts of Damascus while soldiers stormed a nearby town and dozens of bodies were found across the province.

The southern suburb of Tadamun and the neighbouring Palestinian refugee camp of Yarmuk came under heavy shelling on Friday, witnesses told AFP.

On the outskirts of Damascus, government troops stormed the town of Babila, where Free Syrian Army rebels were entrenched, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

In another grisly find of the almost 18-month conflict, residents recovered a total of 45 bodies in two towns on the outskirts of Damascus, the Britain-based monitoring group said.

It said at least 23 bodies, including those of women and children, were found on Thursday in the eastern suburb of Zamalka, while another 22 were discovered in Qatana in the countryside southeast of the capital.

Zamalka has been a hotbed of anti-government protests, sparking repeated raids by the army and clashes with rebel fighters.

Opposition activists blamed pro-government forces for the killings in Zamalka, accusing President Bashar al-Assad's regime of a "new massacre".

On Friday, the bodies of 16 men were found in Harasta, also in Damascus province, some of them with signs of having been tortured, the Observatory said, adding that at least 14 people were killed in violence early on Friday.

Two children were killed in shelling in the town of Albu Kamal on the Iraqi border while two rebel fighters were killed by mortar fire in the eastern city of Deir Ezzor, it said.

A raid by security forces on Al-Qazzaz district of southeast Damascus, in which troops rounded up dozens of suspected militants, sparked clashes with rebel fighters, the group said.

A total of at least 153 people were killed in violence across Syria on Thursday - 83 civilians, 24 rebels and 46 soldiers, the Observatory said.

In Geneva, the new head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday he had received positive commitments from Assad in Damascus, but stressed the promises needed to be tested in coming weeks.

"President al-Assad agreed on the necessity of urgently boosting humanitarian aid by making it easier to bring in goods that would enable us to step up our activities and adequately respond to the needs that have been growing with gathering speed," ICRC chief Peter Maurer said in a statement.

Maurer said he had also discussed with Assad this week the ICRC's "outstanding request to visit all persons detained in Syria in connection with the current events".

"President al-Assad expressed his readiness to address this issue," he said.

However, Maurer added that "the positive commitments I received during my meetings will obviously have to be followed up and tested in the coming weeks".

The United Nations refugee agency UNHCR said the number of Syrians fleeing their homes continued to soar, adding it would more than double aid to people displaced inside Syria.

"UNHCR's share of the budget in a revised Syria Humanitarian Response Plan being presented to donors this morning is more than doubling to $US41.7 million ($A40.72 million)," the UN High Commissioner for Refugees said on Friday.

The agency stressed that this plan was separate from that for refugees who'd fled Syria to neighbouring countries.

So far, 246,267 Syrian refugees have been registered or are awaiting registration in surrounding nations, the UNHCR said.

"The numbers are enormous," an agency spokesman said.

Of those refugees, more than 81,000 have made their way to Jordan, nearly 65,000 are in Lebanon, more than 78,000 are in Turkey and nearly 22,000 are in Iraq, according to UNHCR statistics.

Yet the need for assistance inside Syria is also massive.

"Last week alone, close to 3000 refugees went to the UNHCR office in Damascus with concerns about security, financial difficulties and need for resettlement," the agency said.

The violence in Syria has killed more than 26,000 people since it erupted in mid-March 2011, according to the Observatory.

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