Bashar al-Assad and other senior Syrian officials should be investigated for ordering crimes against humanity, according to a report prepared for the UN, The Guardian reported Thursday. The missive comes as the rebel city of Homs endures another day of ceaseless shelling. Like a sped-up version of Sarajevo in the 90s, the city is under siege, with innocents—including two western reporters killed Tuesday—dying every day.
Bashar al-Assad and other senior Syrian officials should be investigated for ordering crimes against humanity, according to a report prepared for the UN, The Guardian reported Thursday. The missive comes as the rebel city of Homs endures another day of ceaseless shelling. Like a sped-up version of Sarajevo in the 90s, the city is under siege, with innocents—including two western reporters killed Tuesday—dying every day.
Most reporters and other observers have been kept out of Homs. But hundreds of homemade videos from inside the city continue to trickle out nonetheless, according to the New York Times:
Some of the videos from Homs are too painful or graphic to watch, like one from the city’s National Hospital, where activists came across a victim bearing evidence of torture. On his body, written in Arabic with a marker pen, is “Anonymous, Number 348.” The narrator reads that and adds, “This means there are at least 348 anonymous persons in the hospital.”
Calls for some kind of intervention in Syria will likely continue to grow as long as the horror show in Homs goes on. But one voice not likely to join those calls is that of Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez. A Venezuelan oil tanker recently docked in Syria, providing much-needed fuel for Assad’s increasingly belligerent war against his own people.