Syria Uprising: Children In Body Bags Reportedly Photographed In Homs (WARNING: GRAPHIC)

Activists say troops loyal to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad committed a 'terrible massacre' in the city of Homs on Thursday, killing at least 30 people, including women and children.

Photos taken by activists on Thursday and obtained by the Associated Press purport to show the bloodied dead bodies of five small children wrapped in plastic bags, along with five women and a man piled up on beds. They were allegedly killed in an apartment building in the Homs neighborhood of Karm Al-Zaytoun.

WARNING: EXTREMELY DISTURBING IMAGE BELOW

Rights groups say that Syrian armed forces shelled residential buildings with mortars and opened fire with machine guns on Thursday. Witnesses reported attacks on checkpoints, kidnappings and sectarian killings. "There has been a terrifying massacre," Rami Abdul-Rahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told the Associated Press.

Activists estimate that over 6,200 people have died since the start of the protests in Syria in March 2011. A UN report released in November 2011 concluded that children in Syria have suffered serious violations and that security forces have shown "little or no recognition of the rights of children" in the actions taken to quell dissent.

In the image below, children are seen in plastic bags. The signs written in Arabic purport to show each child's name.

WARNING: GRAPHIC IMAGE

This citizen journalism image provided by the Local Coordination Committees in Syria and released on early Friday Jan. 27, 2012, purports to show five dead bodies of Syrian children wrapped in plastic bags, who activists say were killed by the shelling of the Syrian forces, in the Karm el-Zaytoun neighborhood of Homs, Syria, on Thursday Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Local Coordination Committees in Syria)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS IS UNABLE TO INDEPENDENTLY VERIFY THE AUTHENTICITY, CONTENT, LOCATION OR DATE OF THIS HANDOUT PHOTO.

Comments

[Nico Jordaan]

04:04 AM on 01/30/2012

I have seen that picutre somewhere else before months ago....lol love the BS guys! Who wrote this? Be man enough to admit you got this from someone else and this is fake!

[who38]

06:41 PM on 01/30/2012

Actually, they are pictures of the Haditha victims. aren't they?

[spytheweb]

04:37 PM on 01/29/2012

Where are the pictures of the bodies of children in bodybags after the US's shock and awe of Baghdad?

[Withwhatsmine]

04:02 AM on 01/30/2012

or Israel killing 300 kids in Gaza in 2 weeks.

[Sharmine Narwani]

04:23 PM on 01/29/2012

Having just come out of Syria and seen some horrific photos and footage from activists and regime supporters both - some of these debunked over time as hoaxes - I have concluded that a picture is no longer worth a thousand words. There are ferocious attempts by both sides to propagandize, but sadly, we make little attempt to verify any of this before we stick them on the internet.

Here's another example of disinformation about dead Syrian babies: http://electronicintifada.net/blog/ali-abunimah/how-cnn-helped-spread-hoax-about-syrian-babies-dying-incubators

[Dick Stone]

03:28 AM on 01/30/2012

I think that you are absolutely correct, this is a staged photo. There are many deaths happen daily all over the Middle East as does there in Mexico and the US, and most media outlets have been very irresponsible about how they have presented much of this information.

[who38]

06:42 PM on 01/30/2012

Remember when the Shrub wouldn't allow the caskets of returning war dead photographed?

[Withwhatsmine]

04:05 AM on 01/30/2012

In like 2008 someone who had actually been to Iraq thought Saddam had killed babies on purpose in Kuwait. I showed him the evidence it was fake and he was shocked. Israel on the other hand bombs schools, Mosques and Hospitals, they even bombed a rehad center for people they had already bombed.

[WhatDaBleep]

01:05 PM on 01/29/2012

This is something the news media refused to show when America invaded Iraq. Hmmm, Hypocrisy at its best!

[Massconfusion]

09:45 PM on 01/28/2012

edifique Assad

[laborgrunt]

07:45 PM on 01/28/2012

I really dont know who to trust/believe in this Syrian conflict. Look at what the Libyan "freedom" fighters are doing to people now.

[Eris23Skidoo]

10:36 PM on 01/28/2012

Nah, those are just from the trolls who are out to make Huffposters look kooky.

[who38]

06:43 PM on 01/30/2012

...and the Egyptians, and the Afghanis.

[JerryLevy]

05:36 PM on 01/28/2012

Not bad, only two posts blaming Israel for this Syrian genocide. Must be a lot of Huffington Posters on vacation.

[Eris23Skidoo]

10:37 PM on 01/28/2012

Oops. I meant to reply to your comment here instead:

Nah, those are just from the trolls who are out to make Huffposter­s look kooky.

[Withwhatsmine]

04:06 AM on 01/30/2012

I am sure they are getting a belly laugh in Israel.

[karen lyons kalmenson]

11:27 AM on 01/28/2012

where humans tread
so many end up dead
why can't people
try kindness instead
my woodstock nation
roots have risen again
we need peace ASAP
if not now, then when

[Sofia Champion]

10:18 AM on 01/28/2012

This is a still from a video. I'm sorry, but this is very dishonest journalism. The article says that this is a photo that was taken, but I've seen the entire video of the family that was massacred in Syria.

(warning: graphic content) liveleak (dot) com/view?i=d09_1327619507

Make your own judgements as to what happened by what you see in this video. It seems more as if it belongs to a jihadist group, from what I've seen. The children in the "photo" are at 0:57.

[7alab]

11:06 AM on 01/28/2012

Children belonging to a Jihadist group?? Ignorance is a bless?

[Sofia Champion]

08:02 PM on 01/28/2012

I'm not saying the children were part of the jihadist group, I'm saying they might have been killed by one. I do not believe the Syrian opposition is all full of extremists, but I'm worried the extremists are taking advantage of the uprising going on in order to gain power.

[who38]

06:46 PM on 01/30/2012

Beats being an altar boy.

[Vyslichajici]

09:09 AM on 01/28/2012

why werent the photos of iraqi amd palestinian children described as horrifying?
not bothering to read an article that is so obviously proaganda for the imf/israel putsch in syria.

[Eris23Skidoo]

10:40 PM on 01/28/2012

Actually, there were plenty of photos of the brutally murdered bodies of Iraqi children all throughout the Iraq War. I remember seeing them online and posting them to my blog. So don't act like the world only cares when Syrian children are killed. We also cared about Iraqi children. And we do view Dubya as the butcher who slaughtered them just as much as Assad is the butcher who slaughtered these children.

[foxefire10]

08:58 AM on 01/28/2012

If Bush were in office this would never have happened.

[headworker6969]

10:34 AM on 01/28/2012

Thats a bunch of Bull s--t Bush didn't do a damm thing for this country especially on 9-11

[foxefire10]

08:26 PM on 01/28/2012

When Bush left office unemployment was 6.5 per cent. It's now 8.5 per cent.

Gas was $1.69. It's now $3.30.

The average age of a car was 6 years old. It's now 10 ears old.

Iraq is now a democracy the only one in the middle east. Which Obama voted against.

[caland]

11:01 AM on 01/28/2012

Yeah, we would have bombed all these kid's parent's homes waaay before they were ever born to begin with.

[foxefire10]

08:28 PM on 01/28/2012

Obama should have stepped in long before now. I guess his vacationing and then campaigning got in the way.

[qwertyuioop]

07:06 AM on 01/28/2012

What's worse than a dead baby?

[CURARE]

08:31 AM on 01/28/2012

a dying baby

[rosiebond007]

01:21 AM on 01/28/2012

The US will not do anything alone - they will only go with a NATO partnership.

The best way today.

[7alab]

12:00 AM on 01/28/2012

People are unable to independently verify the authenticity of the associated press. Regarding these massacred children, they have names, blood, flesh, families and wasted dreams and they don't give a damn if associated press stamp of approval will or will not imprint their small graves

[Eris23Skidoo]

10:51 PM on 01/28/2012

Now hold on there.

The AP is rather professional. Excuse them if they don't have a camera in every home and thus the ability to verify every fact. They are reporting this news and merely passing along the info that this photo was not taken by any of their photographers and none of their people were present when the photo was taken so they can't verify the time, date or location of the photograph. That they mentioned such is just a statement of professionalism. It's not like they refused to run the story because they could not authenticate the photo. And their statement as such does not diminish the impact of the photo. It is merely stating facts in a fact-based profession.

[7alab]

11:47 PM on 01/27/2012

Syrians are dying bravely and silently while the rest of the world is just watching and not moving even a finger, except the middle one

Humanity bloody past is littered with the utter silence of decent people.  It is exactly that silence that was, is and will always be the most hurtful and painful

[JacksonD]

01:21 AM on 01/28/2012

Reminds me of the silence of what happened in Rwanda. Shameful.

[Vyslichajici]

09:12 AM on 01/28/2012

reminds me of the gaza strip.

[Johnny Phive]

07:08 AM on 01/28/2012

and Russia is saying they will block any measure to intervene

[indyclem]

09:57 AM on 01/28/2012

who do you think syria is getting its weapons from