Dubai: More than 470 Syrians, including 360 civilians and 113 members of the security forces and army, were killed during Ramadan, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.
The civilians included 25 people aged under 18 apart from 14 women and 28 who died in detention or during torture, mainly in the Homs area where government forces were reportedly conducting new operations on Wednesday.
The security forces returned the bodies of 13 people killed in the violence to their families. At least five of these people had been arrested in early August, the observatory said.
Custodial killings
In a separate report, Amnesty International said that it had heard of 88 deaths in custody between April 1 and August 15, including 10 children aged between 13 and 18.
Syrian activists told Gulf News that the figure of prisoners killed in custody is much higher than the 88 being documented in the report and accused the regime of systematically killing protesters in a bid to crush the uprising against the 48-year rule of the Baath party.
Read more stories on the Middle East unrest
"The 88 deaths represented a significant escalation in the number of deaths following arrests in Syria. In recent years Amnesty International has typically recorded around five deaths in custody per year in Syria," said Neil Sammonds, Amnesty International's researcher on Syria.
He said the accounts of torture Amnesty International has received are horrific.
"We believe the Syrian government to be systematically persecuting its own people on a vast scale." Sammonds said.
See also Page 10
