Anti-Assad protesters in Homs 311 (R).
(photo credit: REUTERS/Handout)
AMMAN - Syrian forces shot dead two mourners on Saturday when they fired
on a funeral procession in central Damascus for a 10-year-old child
killed during a protest a day earlier, a witness said.
With the
deployment of thousands of police and militiamen loyal to Syrian President
Bashar Assad, central neighborhoods of Damascus have remained largely
free of pro-democracy protests that have spread across the country in
the seven-month-old uprising.
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at Saturday's funeral, "passions were running high," the witness said.
"The body was wrapped in white and thousands behind it were chanting
'the people want the execution of the president' and 'we will be free
despite you Bashar'."
Some mourners began throwing stones at the
security forces, who fired live ammunition back, the witness told
Reuters by phone from the scene in the Maidan district.
The child, Ibrahim Sheiban, was killed in a protest in the Qadam suburb
of Damascus. His funeral took place in Meidan, an old, socially
conservative district of the capital, because his family is originally
from there, said the witness, a private sector employee who did not want
to be further identified.