BEIRUT – Dozens of people were killed and wounded in an air strike on a bakery in Syria's central Hama province Sunday with some reporting up to 200 dead even as international envoy Lakhdar Brahimi arrived in Damascus to discuss ways of ending the crisis. “There is no way to really know yet how many people were killed. When I got there, I could see piles of bodies all over the ground. There were women and children,” said Samer Al-Hamawi, an activist in the town of Halfaya, where the strike hit. “There are also dozens of wounded people” Halfaya was seized by rebels last week as part of a campaign to push into new territories in the 21-month-old revolt against President Bashar Al-Assad. Another activist said residents picking through the bodies were still determining which were wounded and which were dead. Activists said more than a thousand people had been queuing at the bakery. Shortages of fuel and flour have made bread production erratic across the country, and people often wait for hours to buy bread. Brahimi landed in Beirut and traveled to the Syrian capital by land because of fighting near the Damascus airport, Lebanese officials said. Brahimi did not speak publically upon his arrival in Damascus. Violence continued around the country Sunday. Anti-regime activists reported government airstrikes on suburbs east of the capital and the northern province of Aleppo. Airstrikes on the town of Al-Safira, south of Aleppo, killed 13 women and children, including a mother and five daughters from one family, a local activist named Hussein said via Skype. He gave only his first name for fear of retribution. The town lies next to a large military complex with factories and artillery and air defense bases. Hussein guessed the airstrike was payback for recent rebel attacks on the complex. “The strikes don't hit the fighters at all,” he said. “They want to take revenge on the civilians.” Videos posted online showed a swath of simple concrete homes reduced to rubble. In one video, a man pulls a young boy from the rubble, clutches him to his chest and rushes away wailing. – Agencies
