DAMASCUS, Syria, March 25 (UPI) -- Syrian security forces opened fire on demonstrators in and around the southern city of Daraa Friday, killing as many as 20 people, witnesses said.
Witnesses said the protesters died as they tried to march to Daraa, but Sky News said the death toll could not be verified independently.
Video reportedly shot near Daraa Friday showed crowds scattering to the sound of gunfire before they return to the streets to remove several people clearly severely injured or dead, Sky News said.
The violence escalated after the Syrian government pledged political reforms, and promised to investigate whether a decades-old state of emergency could be lifted.
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The call for anti-government demonstrations across Syria went out Thursday after it became clear dozens of protesters were killed the day before in a raid by security forces in Daraa, the center of Syria's growing unrest, The Washington Post reported.
In Daraa, security forces Friday fired live ammunition and tear-gas rounds at crowds in the city center after protesters tried to destroy a statue of President Bashar Assad's late father and remove a portrait of the king's son.
"We met the intensive fire with our chests, without throwing any stones," a protester told the Post.
Among things Thursday, Syrian officials said they would try people suspected of killing several protesters in the southwestern city and release people detained during the recent protests, the BBC reported.
Estimates vary about how many people were killed in Wednesday's violence in Daraa, where witnesses said security forces opened fire on protesters outside a mosque and during a funeral. Reports of the number dead ranged as high as 100. The government said 10 people died.
Officials promised to look into whether the state of emergency, in effect since 1963, could be lifted. A spokeswoman said the government also would increase workers' wages, introduce reforms in healthcare, allow more political parties to participate in elections, ease media restrictions and set up a system to fight corruption.
