Another day of deadly violence on Tuesday was the bloody backdrop to Annan’s last-gasp efforts to salvage his peace strategy, with 98 men and women killed, most of them civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
The daily toll, from the British-based monitoring group, integrated 61 civilians, 28 government troops and nine rebel fighters, as the country slipped more towards civil war.
On the diplomatic front, the apparently coordinated expulsion orders issued by the European Union, the United States and other governments such as Australia, Canada and Switzerland – had been in response to the earlier killing of at least 108 men and women, almost half of them children, in the course of an assault by pro-government forces last week.
Washington mentioned it hoped the outcry over the deaths near the central town of Houla on Friday and Saturday would draw a modify of heart from Damascus ally Moscow, which has previously blocked tougher UN action against Assad’s regime.
“We are at a tipping point,” Annan said after his talks with the Syrian leader in the capital, aimed at rescuing his troubled peace blueprint that was supposed to begin with a ceasefire from April twelve that has never taken hold.
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