Opposition activists in Syria yesterday criticised UN observers for failing to take action to prevent a massacre in the town of Houla.

They also criticised the UN mission for not condemning President Bashar al-Assad’s forces for the killings on Friday. Syrian authorities have denied responsibility, blaming “terrorists” for the massacre.

“The observers’ delegation remained helpless and did not take an initiative to intervene, except to count the victims the day after the massacre just as the UN did in Sarajevo and Srebrenica in Bosnia,” a statement by the Revolutionary Council of nearby Homs said.

Images of lifeless young bodies, lain side by side after the massacre, triggered shock around the world and underlined the failure of a six-week-old UN ceasefire plan to stop the violence in Syria.

UN military and civilian observers counted 32 children under 10 years of age among the dead in Houla.

General Robert Mood, head of the unarmed UN observers force, called the killings “a very tragical expression” of the situation in Syria but refrained from apportioning blame.

Maysara al-Hilawi said he was one of the first activists belonging to the “Houla co-ordination committee” who rushed to the area on Friday shortly after members of a pro-Assad militia, drawn from the Alawite offshoot of Shia Islam, fled the Sunni Muslim area.

“I helped collect over 100 bodies in the last two days, mostly women and children. The last ones were six members of the al-Kurdi family. A father and his five kids. The mother is missing,” he said by telephone from the area

He said he had feared a “massacre was about to be committed”, but UN observers whom he pleaded with to rush to the area had “arrived too late”.

Opposition activists in Homs said the violence began after Syrian troops and militiamen, stationed at roadblocks that surround Houla, fired heavy machineguns at a demonstration, killing five people.

Free Syrian Army rebels responded by ransacking two army roadblocks, the activists said.

Houla then came under an intense artillery barrage that killed around 15 villagers. Residents say members of Assad’s “shabbiha” militia then entered Houla from nearby villages, hacking men, women and children with knives and shooting them at close range.

The opposition activists said around 400 families have fled the region in the last 48 hours since the massacre.

Opposition head Burhan Ghalioun called yesterday for a “battle of liberation” against the regime until the UN takes action under Chapter Seven which allows military intervention.

“I call on the Syrian people to lead a battle of liberation and dignity, relying on its own forces, on the rebels deployed across the country and the Free Syrian Army brigades and friends,” he told a news conference in Istanbul.

Ghalioun, outgoing leader of the Syrian National Council (SNC), said such action would be taken “unless the international community assumes its responsibilities under Chapter Seven” of the UN charter.

A Chapter Seven resolution, which can be imposed by the UN Security Council, authorises foreign powers to take measures including military options.

Ghalioun, in a meeting earlier with Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, said the anti-regime uprising in Syria had reached a “turning point” after the killings in Houla.

“The SNC calls on the international community and in particular (UN-Arab League envoy) Kofi Annan to act immediately to halt the killings,” an unnamed Turkish source quoted him as telling Davutoglu.