Video posted online by Syrian activists, said to have been recorded as shots were fired during a funeral in the city of Aleppo.
As my colleague Neil MacFarquhar reports, the United Nations Security Council voted Saturday to send an advance team of up to 30 military observers to Syria, where activists appeared to document the security forces opening fire on protesters at a funeral in the city of Aleppo.
A series of brief video clips uploaded to YouTube by activists on Saturday showed a large crowd of mourners chanting as the sound of gunshots erupted. Activists said that troops fired live ammunition and tear gas to disperse the mourners.
Even as the intensity of the gunfire appeared to increase, one activist's video of the scene showed several protesters not retreating, but staying to record the shooting on their phones.
One of the clips of protesters fleeing from the gunfire included the surreal image of an inflatable duck being held aloft by someone in the retreating crowd. The Syrian opposition has mocked President Bashar al-Assad with images of ducks since a leaked e-mail said to have been sent to him by his British-born wife apparently revealed that she referred to him by that pet name.
Activists also posted graphic video online that seemed to support their claim that some of the protesters were killed by gunshots. One brief clip, said to show a young boy begging his father for forgiveness after being shot, quickly became a rallying cry for activists online.
"Forgive me father" (or #سامحني_يوب in Arabic) are memorable words uttered by a kid in Aleppo after he was injured. Now a revolution hashatg
— Nuff Silence (@NuffSilence) 14 Apr 12
سامحني يوب
#سامحني_يوب http://t.co/sNMmvusA
— mohsen hassino (@mohsenhassino) 14 Apr 12
One gruesome clip, apparently recorded as protesters took cover from the gunfire, showed a young man being dragged back into a mosque, after taking what appeared to be a sniper round in the head.
Another equally horrifying clip showed a huge blood stain on the pavement as a man with a sever head wound was carried away by frantic protesters.
While government restrictions on independent reporting inside Syria make it difficult to verify the authenticity of video posted online by opposition activists, at least some of the images uploaded to YouTube on Saturday by protesters appeared to match video broadcast by Syrian state television.
One of the activists who documented the gunfire at the funeral also recorded video of protesters gathered around burning tires — which are sometimes set alight to generate smoke that can lessen the effects of tear gas.As a video report from Britain's Telegraph shows, Syrian state television in Aleppo broadcast video of what looked to be the same street — although the government channel claimed the violence in the city of Saturday was caused by "terrorists," rather than the security forces.
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