60 Dead in Strike on Hama Bakery as Warplanes Hit Rebel Bastions
More than 60 civilians were killed on Sunday in a strike by Syrian regime warplanes on people queuing outside a bakery in the rebel-held town of Halfaya in the central province of Hama, a watchdog said, as regime warplanes pounded the capital's suburbs and the northern province of Aleppo.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which had earlier reported "dozens" killed, said the death toll could rise as at least 50 people had also been critically wounded.
The Local Coordination Committees activist group denounced "the massacre committed by regime forces," and said Halfaya was going through a humanitarian crisis with food shortages because of the regime's siege of the area.
The LCC said dozens of people had been queuing outside the bakery after not having had any bread for several days.
“Preliminary reports said around 200 people were martyred while the toll is likely to go higher due to the fact that bodies are still being pulled out from beneath the remains,” the LCC added.
"A MiG (jet) has attacked! Look at (President Bashar) Assad's weapons. Look, world, look at the Halfaya massacre," says an unidentified cameraman shooting an amateur video distributed by the Observatory.
The footage showed a bombed one-story block, and a crater in the road beside it.
Bloodied bodies lay on the road, while others could be seen in the rubble.
Men carried victims out on their backs, among them at least one woman, the video showed.
On Monday, rebels launched an all-out assault on army positions across Hama, which is home to strong anti-regime sentiment.
During the summer, rights groups accused government forces of committing war crimes by dropping bombs and using artillery on or near several bakeries in the northern province of Aleppo.
One of the bloodiest attacks was on a bread line in the Qadi Askar district of Aleppo city on August 16 that left 60 people dead, according to local hospital records.
Elsewhere, warplanes launched several strikes across Syria, including on rebel-held towns in the northern province of Aleppo and on countryside around the capital, the Observatory said.
At least 44,000 people have been killed in violence across Syria since the outbreak of the anti-regime revolt in March last year, the Observatory says.
Air strikes on Sunday included a raid on Sfeira in Aleppo province, said the Britain-based Observatory.
"At least 13 people were killed in an air raid on the town of Sfeira," said the group, which relies on a network of doctors, activists and lawyers for its information.
Fighter jets also hit the town of Saqba in Damascus province, just north of the road linking the capital to the international airport, the Observatory added.
Including those killed in Halfaya, at least 174 people -- 108 of them civilians -- were killed on Sunday across Syria, said the Observatory. The deaths came a day after at least 117 people were killed nationwide.
A Palestine Liberation Organization official, meanwhile, told a conference in Cairo that more than 700 Palestinians have been killed in the conflict, including in the Yarmuk refugee camp of southern Damascus.
"We have asked the Syrian authorities not to let Palestinians be drawn into the conflict," the PLO's Zakaria al-Agha said.
Late on Sunday, several rockets were fired into the camp which has been the scene of deadly clashes between pro- and anti-regime forces over the past week, the Observatory said.
It said two men were killed by the rocket fire and another was shot dead by a sniper.
Source: Agence France Presse, Naharnet
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