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Syrians flee to Lebanon amid Homs atrocity claims Syrians flee to Lebanon amid Homs atrocity claims
(about 6 hours later)
Thousands of Syrians have recently crossed into Lebanon, the UN says, amid reports security forces are committing atrocities in the city of Homs. More than 1,500 Syrians have crossed into Lebanon in recent days, the UN's refugee agency says, amid reports of troops committing atrocities in Homs.
The UN refugee agency said as many as 2,000 people fled in the past two days. A UNHCR spokeswoman said 170 families had sought refuge in the village of al-Fakha and 50 others in nearby Arsal.
A resident of the Baba Amr district of Homs told the BBC that soldiers had slit the throat of her 12-year-old son. The agency and other local groups are sending food, blankets and other aid.
Meanwhile, UN's humanitarian chief Valerie Amos said she had been given permission to visit Syria and wanted unhindered access for humanitarian aid. The UN's human rights commissioner has meanwhile described as "truly shocking" video appearing to show torture victims in the Military Hospital in Homs.
Valerie Amos said she planned to go to Syria on Wednesday. The footage, filmed by an employee at the hospital in the past three months and href="http://www.channel4.com/news/exclusive-syrian-doctors-torturing-patients" >broadcast by the UK's Channel 4 News on Monday, shows wards full of wounded men, blindfolded and shackled to their beds.
Former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan is also due to visit Syria at the weekend as joint special envoy for the UN and the Arab League. On Wednesday, he will hold talks with league officials in Cairo. Some appear to bear marks of extreme beating, and the hospital employee said many patients were whipped and beaten in their beds.
'Screams' Security 'restored'
The UN refugee agency (UNHCR) said on Monday that many Syrian refugees - including women and children - had only a few belongings as they arrived into Lebanon. Many of the refugees who have crossed into Lebanon have come from Homs, and particularly the opposition stronghold of Baba Amr, which troops entered on Thursday after nearly four weeks of bombardment.
Some have also fled the town of Qusair, 15km (nine miles) from Homs and close to the border, which has also been attacked.
A terrible fear has seized people here about what the government forces are doing now that they are back in control.A terrible fear has seized people here about what the government forces are doing now that they are back in control.
In a house, we sat with six women and their 17 children. They had arrived that day. There were no men.In a house, we sat with six women and their 17 children. They had arrived that day. There were no men.
"We were walking out altogether until we reached the checkpoint," said one of the women, Um Abdo."We were walking out altogether until we reached the checkpoint," said one of the women, Um Abdo.
"Then they separated us from the men. They put hoods on their heads and took them away.""Then they separated us from the men. They put hoods on their heads and took them away."
Where do you think they are now, I asked? The women replied all at once: "They will be slaughtered."Where do you think they are now, I asked? The women replied all at once: "They will be slaughtered."
Residents of the northern Lebanese town of Arsal said that up 150 Syrian families arrived there on Sunday alone. Dana Suleiman of the UNHCR told the AFP news agency that 220 families - each comprising about six or seven people, mostly women and children - had sought refuge in the eastern Bekaa region of Lebanon.
"What are we supposed to do? People are sitting in their homes and they are hitting us with tanks," Hassana Abu Firas, from Syria's border town of al-Qusair, told the Associated Press. "We are trying to verify whether there are additional people in other areas and how many have returned to Syria," she added.
"Those who can flee, do. Those who can't will die sitting down," she added. The UN estimates that 70,000 people have been displaced since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in March, and that more than 20,000 have fled to Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. Nearly 7,000 people were registered with the UNHCR in northern Lebanon last week.
The UN estimates that 70,000 people have been displaced since the uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad began in March, and that more than 20,000 have fled to Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan. Nearly 7,000 people are registered with the UNHCR in northern Lebanon. People fleeing Homs have told the BBC that security forces are committing atrocities there. Men and boys were being detained in raids or at checkpoints, and then tortured or even executed summarily, they said.
People fleeing the city of Homs, 15km (nine miles) from al-Qusair, have told the BBC that security forces are committing atrocities there. One woman told the BBC's Paul Wood on the outskirts of the city that soldiers had rounded up 36 men and boys in her district, including her son, on Friday - a day after rebel fighters withdrew from the Baba Amr district.
One woman told the BBC's Paul Wood on the outskirts of Homs that soldiers had killed her son on Friday - a day after rebel fighters withdrew from the Baba Amr district.
"My son's throat was cut," she said. "He was 12.""My son's throat was cut," she said. "He was 12."
Her husband said he was hiding about 50m (160ft) away and saw one soldier hold down their son's head with his boot while another killed him. On Tuesday, one activist group, the Local Co-ordination Committees, said security forces personnel and pro-government militiamen had killed 13 members of two families with knives in Baba Amr.
"I could hear their screams," he added. Earlier, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported that Syrian forces had destroyed a bridge being used by refugees to enter Lebanon.
The woman said 35 other men and boys from her area had also been detained and killed. The bridge over the Orontes river at Rabla, 3km (2 miles) from the border, was hit by artillery shells and could no longer be used, activist Hadi Abdallah told the AFP news agency.
Opposition and human rights activists have said security forces and pro-government militia have been rounding up men and boys over the age of 14 who are still in Baba Amr, and then torturing and killing them. Syria's state news agency, Sana, meanwhile reported that many families from Baba Amr were returning home because the authorities had "restored stability and security" to the district.
The claims cannot be independently verified. "Public workshops also continued maintenance and cleaning works, opening roads, streets and removing the debris left by the terrorists who sabotaged the general and private properties," it said, adding that reconnaissance planes and anti-tank grenades had been found.
The Syrian government has denied the Red Cross access to Baba Amr district for four consecutive days, citing security concerns. Despite this, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and the Syrian Red Crescent have not been allowed into to Baba Amr to deliver aid and evacuate the wounded since Friday. Officials have cited security concerns.
Activists have warned of a humanitarian catastrophe. The UN's Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, has said she has been given permission to visit Syria on Wednesday and that she would call for "unhindered access for humanitarian aid".
The former UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan, is also due to visit Syria at the weekend as joint special envoy for the UN and the Arab League. On Wednesday, he will hold talks with Arab League officials in Cairo.
Turkey's Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan urged Syria to allow the opening of humanitarian corridors to get relief supplies to civilians.
He said the people of Homs were in particular need of help, but he gave no details of which routes the aid corridors might take.
'Hospital torture''Hospital torture'
Several men who said they had defected from an elite army unit last week told our correspondent that civilians were being targeted by security forces and prisoners were being killed. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, has meanwhile expressed dismay at what appears to be the first video evidence of torture at the Homs Military Hospital, allegedly perpetrated by security forces personnel, as well as by military and civilians medical staff.
"A lieutenant gave us the order," he said. "We were told in this operation: 'You shoot anything that moves. Civilian or military - you shoot at it.'" "The pictures shown on Channel 4 last night are truly shocking, and unfortunately very much in accordance with evidence that has been accumulated in the Human Rights Council-mandated Fact-Finding Mission and Commission of Inquiry reports on Syria," her spokesman, Rupert Colville, said.
Our correspondent says the people of Baba Amr defied the government and now they are scattered, their uprising crushed. The footage taken by a Homs Military Hospital employee showed wards full of wounded men, shackled to their beds and blindfolded.
The UK's Channel 4 News broadcast secretly shot footage on Monday that it said shows hospital patients in Homs being tortured by medical staff. "I have seen detainees being tortured by electrocution, whipping, beating with batons, and by breaking their legs. They twist the feet until the leg breaks," he told Mani, a French photojournalist who smuggled the video out of Syria.
Pictures showed wards full of wounded men, shackled to their beds and blindfolded and some showing the marks of severe beatings. "They perform operations without anaesthetics," he added. "I saw them slamming detainees' heads against walls. They shackle the patients to beds. They deny them water. Others have their penises tied to stop them from urinating."
The authorities have not commented and the video cannot be independently verified. The authorities have not commented and the video cannot be verified.
The UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay told Channel 4 that the images accorded with other evidence gathered by a UN-backed commission of inquiry of torture in Syrian hospitals, particularly military hospitals.
An independent commission of inquiry set up by the UN said in February that Syrian security forces had "committed widespread, systematic and gross human rights violations, amounting to crimes against humanity, with the apparent knowledge and consent of the highest levels of the state".
The EU has said it will document alleged war crimes to set the stage for a "day of reckoning" for Syria's leaders. But Russia and China have vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions critical of the government.
Meanwhile, the body of US journalist Marie Colvin is due to be flown back to New York on Tuesday morning.
Colvin, who worked for the Sunday Times, died in a rocket attack in Baba Amr on 22 February with French photographer Remi Ochlik.