In Geneva, the United Nations’ political officer, B. Lynn Pascoe, said that “well over” 7,500 Syrians are now known to have been killed since the uprising began last March 15, and that an average of 100 are dying daily in
BY LIZ SLY | THE WASHINGTON POST
BEIRUT — Thirteen Syrian opposition activists were killed during a daring and chaotic attempt to smuggle four foreign journalists out of a besieged Homs neighborhood, human rights groups said Tuesday, illuminating the risks taken by the networks that routinely ferry injured people out of stricken Syrian cities.
Syrian security forces ambushed the group, which included about 40 activists as well as the four journalists, overnight Monday as they tried to leave Bab Amr, according to the advocacy group Avaaz, which helped coordinate the rescue attempt. The neighborhood has been a center of resistance to President Bashar al-Assad and the main target of his government’s efforts to quell the nearly year-long revolt.
One of the journalists, injured British photographer Paul Conroy, managed to escape and was whisked across the border to Lebanon early Tuesday, after three of those accompanying him were killed, according to Avaaz.
But the ferocity of the attack scattered the rest of the group, Avaaz said. The three other journalists were forced to turn back and remain trapped in Bab Amr. Ten more activists escorting them were killed in the confused retreat into the neighborhood, which has come under sustained bombardment for the past 25 days.
The 13 were among 102 people killed across Syria on Tuesday, according to the Local Coordination Committees, a Syrian activist group. The toll included 26 who died in Bab Amr as the government kept up its artillery and rocket attacks against the opposition stronghold.
In Geneva, the United Nations’ political officer, B. Lynn Pascoe, said that “well over” 7,500 Syrians are now known to have been killed since the uprising began last March 15, and that an average of 100 are dying daily in the Syrian government’s attempt to suppress what has become the bloodiest and most intractable of all the Arab revolts.
