Syria’s war has reached “new levels of brutality”, the UN says, with evidence of fresh suspected massacres, sieges and violations of children’s rights.
Children have been taken hostage, forced to watch torture and even participate in beheadings, it says; others have been killed while fighting.
It says it suspects there are “reasonable grounds” to believe chemical weapons have been deployed.
It urges foreign powers not to increase the availability of arms in Syria.
The issue of arms has been high on the international agenda of late, with the EU lifting an embargo on the sale of arms to Syria while Russia has insisted it is going ahead with the sale of an advanced S-300 surface-to-air missile defence system to Syria.