Nearly 400 reported killed in deadly day in Syria

At least 397 people were killed in Syria on Saturday in what could be the country’s bloodiest day since the start of the uprising 21 months ago, the opposition Local Coordination Committees claimed on Sunday.

“By the end of Saturday the LCC managed to document 397 martyrs (including more than 20 children and 20 women),” the activist group reported on its website.

The LLC makes a daily death toll count in the Syrian conflict on its website.

The figure includes 220 people who were “field executed in Deir Balbah” outside the city of Homs after the Syrian forces regained the area, the LCC said.

According to CNN, the activist group has learned about the Deir Balbah massacre from captured soldiers of the Syrian government troops.

The Syrian government has not commented on the alleged mass executions at Deir Balbah while the Syrian state TV showed images of dead bodies and seized weapons in the city’s tunnels it claimed were being used by "terrorists.”

Between 20,000 and 37,000 Syrians, by various estimates, have been killed in the 21-month-long conflict between government forces and the opposition, which comprises groups of all stripes, from Communists and secular liberals to Islamist groups, including Al-Qaeda.

Western powers have insisted on President Bashar al-Assad’s departure before the formation of a new government of national unity while Russia insisted that the decision be left to the “Syrian people.”