BEIRUT -- The U.N. Security Council on Sunday blamed Syrian government forces for artillery and tank shelling of residential areas in Houla as officials from the world body raised their estimate of the death toll in the Friday fighting in the town to 108, including 49 children.

"The members of the Security Council condemned in the strongest possible terms the killings, confirmed by United Nations observers, of dozens of men, women and children and the wounding of hundreds more in the village of Houla, near Homs, in attacks that involved a series of government artillery and tank shellings on a residential neighborhood," the Security Council said in a statement released to the media following a special session in New York on Sunday.

The council members also condemned the killing of civilians by shooting at close range and demanded that Syrian forces "immediately cease the use of heavy weapons in population centers and immediately pull back its troops and its heavy weapons from in and around population centers and return them to their barracks.

Amateur footage of the bloodied corpses of the children have prompted international condemnation of the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad.