Activists said pro-government militiamen and security forces killed at least 78 people, including children, in Syria’s central province of Hama on Wednesday.
According to Reuters, some of those killed in the village of Mazraat al-Qabeer were stabbed to death and at least 12 bodies had been burned.
STORY: Civil War Threatens Syria After 90 Killed In Massacre
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said its activists on the ground documented a smaller number of victims – 24 people, four of them children.
The killings came less than two weeks after a massacre in the Syrian town of Houla, in which security forces and pro-Assad militiamen known as ‘shabbiha’ killed 108 people, nearly half of them children.
Syrian forces had surrounded areas close to Mazraat al-Qabeer for days and began shelling the village on Wednesday evening.
Then the militiamen came in and started shooting and killing people. “The first reports we got were that people were being shot dead. Then some people were found stabbed,” said a Hama-based activist who called himself Manhal.
Many activists demanded an international investigation by the 300-strong U.N. force sent into Syria to observe a ceasefire deal brokered by international envoy Kofi Annan.
This latest massacre brings the death toll to over 10,00 since the Syrian uprising began 15 months ago.
Our hearts and prayers are with the victims of Assad’s genocide.
