Stab, shot, burned and butchered: Horrifying images from Syria show how even young children did not escape Baniyas massacre



Bodies of women mutilated and one toddler was covered in burns

Survivor tells of pro-regime gangs killing everybody they met with knives and guns



Sunni families fleeing the sectarian attacks, but army tells them to go home



Graphic photographs have emerged of the victims of an massacre allegedly committed by gangs of Syrian militia loyal to President Bashar Assad.

The images - pixelated because they are so horrific - show shot, stabbed and burned bodies piled in the streets of the village of Baniyas.

Among the victims are a number of children, some no more than toddlers.



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In May, photographs were released of bodies lying in a street in Baniyas after more than 140 people died in a sectarian massacre by pro-Assad forces in Baniyas and Bayda

Massacred: This image provided by The Syrian Revolution against Bashar Assad reportedly shows dead bodies at Bayda village, where scores of people were allegedly killed by regime forces

Bodies lying inside lying inside a house in Bayda were shown in a YouTube video after two days of slaughter in May

Some were lying in pools of blood, and one toddler was covered in burns, her clothes singed and her legs charred. Some of the women victims were mutilated.

TOLL OF MASSACRES April 2011: More than 70 protesters killed as security forces fire on crowds in Deraa and Damascus.

December 2011: Activists say more than 100 army defectors killed over two days in Idlib province.

May 2012: Some 108 killed in Houla, near Homs - UN later blames Syrian troops and militia.

August 2012: Witnesses and activists say at least 300 killed as government forces storm Darayya, a Damascus suburb.

January 2013: At least 100 people killed and burned in their homes in Haswiya, near Homs.

At least 77 people - 20 from the same family - were killed, a day after 72 died in nearby Bayda after it was overrun by government forces.

Assad's regime claimed it had fought back against 'terrorist' groups' and restored peace and security to the area.

But activists have posted harrowing video clips online to back up their claims that pro-regime militia known as the Shabbiha are involved in the operation.

The BBC's correspondent Jim Muir claims there is a strong sectarian dimension to the killings.



Baniyas is a Sunni Muslim pocket in the middle of a large Alawite enclave on Syria's Mediterranean coast, and activists in the area accuse militias loyal to Assad of ethnic cleansing.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights documented the names of at least 50 dead in Bayda. There were reports of men's bodies, some blindfolded, lying in the street.



The Observatory, which relies on a network of activists on the ground, cited witnesses as saying that some of the victims were killed with knives or blunt objects and that dozens of villagers were missing.

The massacre began following clashes with Assad forces who had earlier arrested villagers and killed them in prison after torture.

A survivor named as Abu Abdullah told the Sunday Telegraph: 'Security and Shabbiha militia entered the village with knives and guns and started to kill everybody they met.

'Almost 60 per cent of the women and children of the village were killed.'

Lifeless: Lying sprawled on the ground, the body of a man killed when Syrian regime forces overran the village of Bayda. The image was taken from a video. His face has been pixelated because of his injuries

Conflict casualties: Two bodies lying in the village of Bayda - said to be victims of militia loyal to President Assad

Hundreds of Sunni families are now fleeing the area, heading for nearby towns like Jableh and Tartou.



But Rami Abdelrahman, head of the Observatory said: 'Now the army is turning people back at the checkpoints outside the town, telling them to go back to Baniyas, that nothing is wrong.

