A U.N. spokesman says U.N. observers in Syria have entered a central village where government forces reportedly killed dozens of people this week.
Ahmad Fawzi, a spokesman for the mission in Syria, said on Saturday an 11-vehicle observer team entered the village of Tremseh to “seek verification of the facts.” He said they went in after the U.N. was informed that a ceasefire was in place.
Anti-regime activists say government troops surrounded the village on Thursday and shelled it before they entered with pro-regime thugs and killed people in the streets. They say they have confirmed the deaths of 150 people and that many more are missing.
The government says 50 were killed but denies its troops caused the deaths.
Earlier, Turkey’s Prime Minister has warned Syrian leaders that the Syrian people will “make them pay” for massacres like the reported killing of dozens in a farming village by government forces this week.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls the killings an attempted “genocide” and says such acts of violence are “the footsteps of a regime that is on its way out.”
World leaders have heaped criticism on President Bashar Assad’s regime for the mass killings on Thursday in the village of Tremseh.
Activists say more than 17,000 people have been killed since the uprising’s start in March 2011.
