UNSC holds emergency meeting on Syria massacre

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has held an emergency meeting to discuss the latest developments in Syria after 92 people, including at least 32 children, were killed in a massacre in the town of Houla in the west of the country. The Security Council held the meeting on Sunday afternoon to hear a briefing on the massacre from the head of the UN observer mission in Syria, Major General Robert Mood via video-link, The Associated Press reported. Britain and France had proposed issuing a statement to condemn the attack on civilians and pointing the finger at the Syrian government for Friday’s massacre, but Russia blocked attempts to release the statement, saying it could not agree and required an initial briefing by Mood. According to UN peacekeeping chief Herve Ladsous, Mood told the council that UN observers had raised the death toll in Houla to 108 after revisiting the scene. Those killed include 49 children and 34 women, said Ahmad Fawzi, a spokesman for UN-Arab League envoy Kofi Annan. Mood had said in a statement on Saturday that UN military and civilian observers, who went to Houla after the massacre counted more than 32 children under the age of 10 and over 60 adults among the dead, adding that about 300 others had also been wounded in the town. The Syrian government and Russia suggest that an attack by armed gangs, which had refused to accept the UN peace plan in Syria, had caused the mass killing. Syrian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Jihad Makdissi said on Sunday that Damascus holds “armed groups” responsible for recent deadly clashes in Houla. The confrontations broke out between Syrian forces and armed groups, despite a ceasefire that took effect on April 12. The ceasefire is part of a six-point peace plan presented by Annan in March. The first group of UN observers arrived in the Syrian capital on April 15 in line with the UNSC Resolution 2042, which had been approved on the previous day. On April 21, the Security Council met and unanimously approved Resolution 2043, which ratified a proposal to send a mission of 300 observers to the country.