Cairo: Syrian security forces killed eight more protesters and an Arab League organisation urged Arab monitors to leave Syria, saying unrelenting bloodshed made a mockery of their mission.
President Bashar Al Assad's force have killed at least 286 people since December 23, the day before the mission's leader arrived in Syria, according to activists who tally casualties.
Some of Sunday's eight deaths occurred when security forces fired on protesters in the Damascus suburb of Daria, they said.
The Arab Parliament, an 88-strong advisory committee of delegates from the Arab League's member states, said the violence was continuing to claim many victims.
The observer mission has already stirred controversy. Rights groups have reported continued deaths in clashes and tens of thousands of protesters have taken to the streets to show the observers the extent of their anger. The monitors toured several flashpoint areas across the country. The issue of snipers triggered a dispute among the observers.
In a video released by the Observatory, a man wearing an orange vest with the Arab League logo said in Daraa: "There are snipers; we have seen them with our own eyes. We ask the authorities to remove them immediately; if they don't remove them within 24 hours there will be other measures," the unnamed speaker in the video, which was dated Friday, told a crowd of people.
But veteran Sudanese military intelligence officer General Mohammad Ahmad Mustafa Al Dabi, who is heading the observer mission, said the official seen in the video was making a hypothetical remark.
"This man said that if he saw — by his own eyes — those snipers he will report immediately," Al Dabi told the BBC's Newshour programme. "But he didn't see" any.
On Sunday, a child was reportedly shot dead, becoming the first victim in 2012 of the regime's crackdown on dissent.
"For this to happen in the presence of Arab monitors has roused the anger of Arab people and negates the purpose of sending a fact-finding mission," said Arab Parliament chairman Ali Al Salem Al Dekbas.
"This is giving the Syrian regime an Arab cover for continuing its inhumane actions under the eyes and ears of the Arab League," he said.
