Syria 1st-Hand: Darayya --- 6 Weeks After the Mass Killings (Sands)

Some of the dead from the Darayya mass killing, August 2012

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Chickens once more turn on spits outside of Abu Kamal's, a restaurant in the centre of town and a local landmark of sorts, known for its mediocre but filling fast food.

People slowly walk in the streets, small general stores are open and some of the town's furniture makers are busy again in their small workshops, sawdust drifting out on to the roads.

It has been more than six weeks since Daraya suffered the bloodiest single massacre of the Syrian uprising, and daily life has resumed.

On the surface, little appears to have changed since the time before that bright and breezy Friday in late August, when, after a sustained artillery bombardment, tanks and ground troops moved into central Daraya and killed hundreds, perhaps a thousand, people. Men, women and children died, most of them shot.

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Syria Feature: The Darayya "Massacre" and a Regime's "Slow, Steady Killing Strategy" (Los Angeles Times)

A mass grave in Darayya, August 2012

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As he hid from soldiers in a field next to his neighborhood, a young man watched as a cat wandered down a street. Suddenly, it was shot dead. That's when Zuhair noticed the sniper on a nearby roof.

But a father and son walking along the street didn't see the gunman, Zuhair said. The sniper lowered his head and peered through his scope.

He shot the boy first. As the man tried to grab his son, who looked to be about 10, he was shot as well.

The two are among a reported 700 victims of snipers, shelling and summary executions, most of them men, since forces loyal to President Bashar Assad stormed the Damascus suburb of Dariya in late August, one in a growing list of Syrian towns and villages that briefly enter the world's spotlight, only to be replaced by another one when a new mass killing is committed.

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Syria 1st-Hand: Darayya After the Mass Killing --- "The Stink of Death" (Di Giovanni)

A funeral procession in Darayya in August, days before the deadly regime attacks

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Two weeks on, Darayya still stinks of death. A poor Sunni suburb south of Damascus, it had been well known for furniture-making, and for its peaceful resistance before the conflict. Now it is a ghost town of shattered glass and broken graveyard walls, bombed vegetable shops and decapitated blocks of flats. Rank rubbish is piled on corners, uncollected. There is the unmistakable smell of rotting corpses that have not yet been removed from houses. A lone bicyclist makes his way awkwardly through the rubble and debris.

The town is still and lifeless.

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Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: "Several Hundred Bodies" After Regime Offensive in Darayya

See also Iraq Feature: The Critical Issue of Succession in Kurdistan
Saturday's Syria (and Beyond) Live Coverage: More Deaths, More than 200,000 Refugees

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1658 GMT: Bahrain. For the second time in four months, prominent activist Maryam Alkhawaja is being held at Cairo airport and denied entry. Alkhawaja, the international representative of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, has been providing a running report via Twitter:

Saying order is from intelligence and reson is "top secret" as to y im not allowed in #egypt

— Maryam Alkhawaja (@MARYAMALKHAWAJA) August 26, 2012

Theyre putting me under observation with the police cuz im insisting on knowing y im not allowed into #egypt

— Maryam Alkhawaja (@MARYAMALKHAWAJA) August 26, 2012

They want me to sign docs and im refusing, told them i want lawyer @amr_imam present #egypt

— Maryam Alkhawaja (@MARYAMALKHAWAJA) August 26, 2012

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