Worse and worse, and no end in sight

IT IS growing harder to distinguish one bloody day in Syria from the next, unless the horror is so stark as to earn a special mark in the trajectory of an increasingly gruesome conflict. Daraya, a town on the south-western fringe of Damascus with a reputation for stubborn but peaceful opposition to the regime, was the most recent to suffer. Surrounded by loyalist troops from a neighbouring air base, the town endured five days of shelling before a full-scale invasion on August 25th. The pattern of the attack, complete with door-to-door raids and summary executions, has become familiar. But the number of deaths in Daraya exceeded any so far counted in a single incident. According to opposition sources, backed by videos, at least 380 bodies were buried, many in mass graves, wrapped in coarse blankets because white funeral shrouds have become too scarce.

August was certainly the bloodiest month so far: as many as 4,000 may have died, 3,000 of them civilians and rebels, the rest soldiers or pro-regime militiamen. The death toll now often tops 250 a day. The opposition reckons that 23,000-plus Syrians have been killed since protests began in March last year; the UN, more conservatively, puts the toll at 17,000.