Syrian man loses 18 relatives: 'The scene cannot be described'
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Syrian man loses 18 relatives: 'The scene cannot be described'
(CNN) -- In a calm voice, Sheikh Mohammed Fardoun
listed his relatives, 18 in all, who he said were killed Thursday in an
airstrike by Syrian Army MiG fighter jets in the northern town of Maaret
al-Numan.
"Fatma Assam Hajj Khamis,
Abdel Aziz Hajj Khamis, Abu Abdel Azziz Hajj Khamis, Hassan Hajj
Khamis," he told CNN in a telephone interview.
"As soon as we heard the
sound of the shelling, I ran out in the street and found the home of my
aunt completely leveled," said Fardoun.
"The scene cannot be
described. What you see on TV and on YouTube cannot describe this crime.
The building was completely leveled to the ground."
He continued, "I cannot
speak to you about what I happened, I have the names of my relatives and
I accept God's fate, but I am only here to give you this information. I
cannot talk beyond that."
Words are no match for
the power of the images in a YouTube video sent to CNN that supported
Fardoun's account of indiscriminate killing in the town. It showed
residents clambering over mounds of rubble to find survivors. The video
shows piles of rocks, their monochromatic, khaki color occasionally
interrupted by a red stain.
Among the collapsed buildings was a mosque, the cameraman says.
The scene underscores the
lopsided nature of a popular uprising that began in March 2011 and has
turned into a civil war that has defied world efforts to end it.
Syria's Foreign Ministry
spokesman Jihad Makdissi and a Free Syrian Army general said Thursday
they are open to a proposal by U.N. and Arab League Joint Special Envoy
Lakhdar Brahimi for a cease-fire during the Muslim holiday of Eidul
Ad'ha, which begins on October 25.
But such talk did not impress the residents of Maaret al-Numan.
"Is this the time to
agree to a cease-fire?!" one man asks the camera. "Are you holding off
fire so we can have this?! We are defending our people using a bullet.
Instead of agreeing to a temporary cease-fire, go negotiate for a no-fly
zone. Our children are massacred! Go establish a no-fly zone."
Another says, "The world
needs to stop lying. Enough lies! Enough, you Muslims! By God, they are
liars. All the Muslim scholars are lying."
The cameraman says, "The
smell of corpses is overwhelming. Look at this, Arabs and Muslims. The
houses of God are being shelled."
At least 25 people died
in the strike, said Mohammed Kanan, a spokesman for the media office of
the Military Leadership Council, the Free Syrian Army's organizing body.
Fifteen of the bodies were burned beyond recognition, he said.
Recovery operations were ongoing with tractors digging in the rubble, he said.
Most of the dead
appeared to be civilians, said Mahmoud Abdallah, an opposition activist
and citizen journalist in Maraat al-Numan, in a telephone interview with
CNN.
For more than a week,
Maaret al-Numan has been the site of clashes between rebels and Syrian
troops over control of the highway that links Aleppo to Damascus.
The attack came on the
same day that Avaaz, an international activist group, reported that
government forces have kidnapped thousands of civilians during the past
19 months.
"Syrians are being
plucked off the street by Syrian security forces and paramilitaries and
being disappeared into torture cells," Avaaz Campaign Director Alice Jay
said in a statement. "This is a deliberate strategy to terrorize
families and communities -- the panic of not knowing whether your
husband or child is alive breeds such fear that it silences dissent."
Avaaz reports that at
least 28,000 people have been "forcibly disappeared." The group uses
that phrase to conform to language used in the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which defines it as kidnapping by someone acting on behalf of a state.
Avaaz, which promotes
activism on human rights and other issues, based its report on
information provided by human rights lawyers.
Among them is Fadel
Abdul Ghany, who said his group, the Syrian Network for Human Rights,
has identified 18,000 people as missing.
Abdul Ghany told CNN his group updates its figures if it learns that a reported person is no longer missing or has died.
"Those missing people
are still missing, and no one (has) heard anything from them or about
their situation, including families, activists or legal entities," he
told CNN.
CNN cannot independently
confirm reports of kidnappings or the overall number, as the Syrian
government has restricted access by international journalists.
Some relatives said they rely on second- or third-hand information for clues as to what may have happened to their loved ones.
Amer Abdullah, a 32-year-old from Idlib province, said his brother is among the missing.
Abdullah told Avaaz that
his brother, who left the house three months ago to get fuel for the
neighborhood, was arrested at a military checkpoint.
"Since then, we do not
know anything about him except from recently released detainees," he
told Avaaz. "We were told that he was in the prison of Mazzeh,
physically weak and that he lost a lot of weight ... We still don't know
in which security branch he is being held. We did not dare to go and
ask about him for fear of being arrested."
The Syrian government
did not mention the report through state-run media. President Bashar
al-Assad's government has consistently said it is trying to secure the
country from "armed terrorist groups."
Other developments
At least 230 people were killed Thursday, 53 of them in Idlib, the opposition Local Coordination Committees of Syria said.
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