UNITED NATIONS - U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon expressed
alarm on Sunday at the worsening violence in Syria, including the
reported mass killing of Alawites and alleged firing of long-range
missiles on Syrian territory, Ban's spokesman said.
"The Secretary-General is alarmed by the continued dramatic escalation
of violence in Syria over the past several days, and the grave danger
facing civilians in areas under fire," Ban's spokesman, Martin Nesirky,
said in a statement.
"There have been extremely
worrisome reports earlier this week of a mass killing of civilians in
the village of Aqrab near Hama, as well as alleged firing of long-range
missiles in some areas of the country," he said.
In the Aqrab incident, up to 200 members of President Bashar al-Assad's
Alawite minority were injured or killed in an attack on their village
in central Syria on Tuesday, opposition activists said. The death toll
was still not known.
There have also been
reports of the Syrian government using Scud missiles. NATO's U.S.
commander said on Friday the alliance was deploying the Patriot
anti-missile system along Syria's northern frontier because Assad's
forces had fired Scud missiles that landed near Turkish territory.
Nesirky said that "continued bombing raids by fixed-wing military
aircrafts and attack helicopters on populated areas have been amply
documented."
"Today's reports of aerial bombing
amid intense violence resulting in many casualties among the Palestinian
refugee population in the Yarmouk camp in Damascus are a matter of
grave concern," he said.
Activists said fighter jets had bombed the Yarmouk camp, killing at least 25 people sheltering in a mosque.
Nesirky said Ban "calls on all sides to cease all forms of violence.
The Secretary-General reminds all parties in Syria that they must abide
by their obligations under international humanitarian law to protect
civilians."
"Targeting civilians or carrying out
military operations in populated areas, in an indiscriminate or
disproportionate fashion that harms civilians is a war crime," he added.
Syrian Vice President Farouq al-Sharaa told a Lebanese newspaper that
neither forces of President Bashar al-Assad nor rebels can win the war
in Syria. That is a view a number of U.N. officials and diplomats have
voiced privately to Reuters.
The U.N. Security
Council has been incapable of taking any meaningful action in the
conflict. Veto powers Russia and China refuse to condemn Assad or
support sanctions. Assad's government accuses Saudi Arabia, Qatar,
Turkey, the United States and other Western governments of supporting
and arming the rebels, an allegation the governments deny.
Meanwhile, U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi has failed to bridge
the gaps between the Russian and U.S. positions on Syria, which U.N.
diplomats say is at the heart of the longstanding deadlock on the
Security Council.
Nesirky said Ban "reiterates
his call on the international community to make every effort to stop the
tragic spiral of violence in Syria and urgently to promote an inclusive
political process leading to a peaceful political transition." — Reuters
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