Hundreds of Syrians flee Syria to Lebanon (bringing with them specific details of what's going on)

[Turborama]

Source: Xinhua

Hundreds of Syrian families crossed the border with Lebanon Thursday, breaking the blockade imposed by Syrian troops on the border town of Tal Kalakh, a security source told Xinhua.

"Hundreds of women and children from Tal Kalakh fled their town and will stay with their relatives in Lebanon," said the source, adding that some families made the trip on foot.

The fleeing families mainly flocked to the towns of Beqaya and Wadi Khaled on the border between Lebanon and Syria.

Also on Thursday, the security source said Lebanese army troops and members of the Internal Security Forces carried out joint patrols along the Lebanese-Syrian border after gunshots were heard overnight on the Syrian side of the border.

Read more: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/world/2011-04/29/c_13850742.htm

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Robert Fisk: Out of Syria's darkness come tales of terror
Witnesses who fled across the Lebanon border tell our writer what they saw

Source: The Independent

Friday, 29 April 2011

...Syrians arriving in Lebanon are bringing the most specific details of what is going on inside their country, of Fifth Brigade soldiers fighting the armed units of Maher Assad's Fourth Brigade outside Deraa, of random killings around Damascus by the ever-growing armed bands of Shabiha ("the mafia") from the Alawite mountains, of massive stocking up of food. One woman has just left her mother in the capital with 10 kilos of pasta, 10 kilos of rice, five kilos of sugar, box after box of drinking water.

In Deraa – surrounded, without electricity or water or supplies – the price of bread has risen 500 per cent and men are smuggling food into the city over the fields at night.

But it is the killings which terrify the people. Are they committed by the Shabiha from the port city of Lattakia – created by the Assad family in the 70s to control smuggling and protection rackets – or by the secret police to sow a fear that might break the uprising against Assad? Or by the murderers who thrive amid anarchy and lawlessness? Three men carrying sacks of vegetables outside Damascus at night were confronted by armed men last week. They refused to stop. So they were executed.

The Syrian government is appealing to the minorities – to the Christians and the Kurds – to stay loyal to the authorities; minorities have always been safe in Syria, and many have stayed away from protests against the regime. But in the village of Hala, Christian shops are shut as their owners contemplate what are clearly sectarian demands to join in the uprising against Assad. In an attempt to rid Syria of "foreign" influence, the ministry of education has ordered a number of schools to end all English teaching – even banning the names of schools in French and English from school uniforms. Even the kindergarten where the President's two young children are educated has been subject to the prohibitions.

Full article: http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-out-of-syrias-darkness-come-tales-of-terror-2276392.html