Veteran activist George Sabra, who was appointed on Monday as temporary president of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) umbrella group, said Assad's militia, known as shabbiha or ghosts, paraded dead bodies on open trucks through the streets of the Mezze district of western Damascus. "Instead of liberating their land, the so called leader of Syrian resistance, Bashar al-Assad, sent them his shabbiha and murderers to kill and massacre," Sabra told a news conference in Istanbul. Sabra, a Christian who spent eight years as a political prisoner under the iron fisted rule of Assad's late father, described the killings as one of many "crimes against humanity" being committed in Damascus. The SNC condemned "the deafening silence of the international community." Syrians no longer expect an answer to our pleas for help or a chivalrous intervention from our brothers and neighbors. We no longer expect to be supported with the necessary arms to empower the Free Syrian Army to defend our people," the SNC said in a statement issued from Istanbul. On Sunday, activists said at least 85 people had been killed and the toll might reach 250, but, as the army pulled back, more accounts emerged to suggest a much higher final figure. More bodies were now being found burnt or apparently killed in summary executions, they said. Rebels who numbered around 300, withdrew two days ago, they said, leaving Assad's forces in total control. Shamel al-Golani, of the opposition Sham News Network, said one of the hardest hit areas was a neighborhood adjacent to the 100 army brigade, one of the elite units based locally. Its residents are mostly Golan refugees and in the last year thousands of families from nearby areas took shelter in the town. The Syrian Organisation for Human Rights (Sawasiah), which put the death toll at 500, said the army forces included elite Republican Guards, the 100 and 153 artillery brigades and the 555 brigade, formerly known as the Defence Brigades. Units of "sectarian militia" supported by members of air force intelligence, one of the most feared of a myriad of secret police branches, accompanied the army units, it said. According to witness accounts heard by the Syrian organisation, water and electricity were cut off from the town and residents were not allowed to leave as Assad's forces blocked ways in and out of the suburbs. Many of the victims, Sawasiah said, were civilians, targeted because the suburb was an "incubator for armed resistance" and they had showed solidarity with refugees in adjacent towns also subjected to mass killings. Reporting by Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Amman newsroom; Editing by Dominic Evans and Robin Pomeroy