QAA, Lebanon — Syrian refugees fleeing to neighbouring Lebanon on Monday said they feared they would be slaughtered in their own homes as government forces hunted down opponents in a brutal offensive against the opposition stronghold of Homs.
With world pressure at a peak in the boiling crisis, U.S. Sen. John McCain called for airstrikes against Syria. He said the United States has a moral and strategic obligation to force out Assad and his loyalists.
“The only realistic way to do so is with foreign airpower,” McCain said from the Senate floor. “The United States should lead an international effort to protect key population centres in Syria, especially in the north, through airstrikes on Assad’s forces.”
The UN refugee agency said Monday that as many as 2,000 Syrians crossed into Lebanon over the last two days to flee the violence in their country. In the Lebanese border village of Qaa, families with women with small children came carrying only plastic bags filled with a few belongings.
“We fled the shelling and the strikes,” said Hassana Abu Firas. She came with two families who had fled government shelling of their town al-Qusair, about 14 miles (22 kilometres) away, on the Syrian side.
The town is in Homs province, where the government has been waging a brutal offensive for the past month.