Dozens of people were killed Thursday when Syrian warplanes bombed the rebel-held town of Maaret al-Numan. Rescue workers interviewed at the scene reported a toll of at least 44 people, including 29 children. The bombs apparently destroyed two residential buildings and a mosque, where many of the victims had sought shelter. With Syria’s violence continuing to flare, the United Nations’s top human rights official, Navi Pillay, warned the current bloodshed could descend to the levels of Bosnia’s sectarian war.

Navi Pillay: “The memories of what happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina should be sufficiently fresh to warn us all of the danger of allowing Syria to descend into all-out sectarian conflict. Thousands and thousands of men, women and children have already been killed, injured, tortured, displaced. It should not take something as drastic as Srebrenica to shake the world into taking serious action to stop this kind of conflict. By remaining divided, the international community is enabling continuation of the suffering and helping create the circumstances for a wider regional conflict.”