Syrian opposition urges UN meeting over massacre

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Syria's main opposition bloc urged the UN Security Council on Saturday to convene an emergency meeting to examine what it called an army massacre near Homs, where it said 110 people were killed.

'More than 110 people were killed (half of whom are children) by the Syrian regime's forces' in the village of Houla, the Syrian National Council said in a statement.

"Some of the victims were hit by heavy artillery while others, entire families, were massacred," said the statement by Bassma Kodmani, the council's head of foreign relations.

The toll of 110 victims was double that given by the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which said that more than 50 civilians, including 13 children, died in the army shelling of Houla.

The Syrian National Council in its statement urged the UN Security Council 'to call for an emergency meeting to examine the situation... and to determine the responsibility of the United Nations in face of such mass killings, expulsions and forced migration from entire neighbourhoods'.

Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory while giving the lower death toll, agreed that this was 'a real massacre' and complained that 'UN observers are just staying silent' on the matter.

UN leader Ban Ki-moon warned Friday that the risk of all-out conflict was growing in Syria where groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad now control 'significant' parts of some cities.

Syrian government forces are still carrying out 'massive' rights abuses, opposition rebels are stepping up their operations and 'established terrorist groups' are suspected in many deadly attacks, Ban said in a grim new assessment of the 15-month-old conflict.

"There is a continuing crisis on the ground, characterised by regular violence, deteriorating humanitarian conditions, human rights violations and continued political confrontation," said his report, which is to be debated by the UN Security Council next week.

More than 12,600 people, the majority of them civilians, have died since the Syrian uprising began, according to the London-based Observatory, including nearly 1,500 since a putative UN-backed truce took effect April 12.