Attacks on Syria Christian towns ‘kill 11’<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Australian<\/p>\n\n\n\n
17 AUGUST, 2013<\/p>\n\n\n\n
GUNMEN have shot dead 11 people, mostly Christians, in central Syria, the state-run news agency and opposition activists say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The SANA news agency described it as a “massacre” but activists say that many of the dead were pro-government militiamen manning checkpoints.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The opposition Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine of those killed were Christians.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
SANA said the attack occurred after midnight on Saturday on a road linking the Christian villages of Ein al-Ajouz and Nasrah in the central province of Homs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christians, who make up about 10 per cent of Syria’s population, say they are particularly vulnerable to the violence sweeping the country of 22 million people.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many rebels, who are mostly Sunnis, consider Christians to be supporters of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A resident in the area told the Associated Press that the gunmen randomly opened fire on a street as Christians were celebrating a feast day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The witness said many of the dead were refugees from the central city of Homs, which witnessed heavy clashes between rebels and troops over the past two years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Tens of thousands of Christians left downtown districts in Syria’s third largest city because of the fighting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Responding to the news, ODFS Director, Ribal Al-Assad said:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“I am appalled to hear of yet more news of Christians being killed by the Rebel forces, how many more people need to die in Syria before something is done?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we want to stop the wanton violence then no more weapons must enter the country; every day the beautiful mosaic of Syria crumbles further as the Islamist rebels murder on religious and sectarian lines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I appeal for the international community to act.”<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Attacks on Syria Christian towns ‘kill 11’ The Australian 17 AUGUST, 2013 GUNMEN have shot dead 11 people, mostly Christians, in central Syria, the state-run news agency and opposition activists say. The SANA news agency described it as a “massacre” but activists say that many of the dead were pro-government militiamen manning checkpoints. The opposition […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2693,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6610","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-releases"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6610","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6610"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6610\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6644,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6610\/revisions\/6644"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2693"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6610"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6610"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/odf-syria.org\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6610"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}