DAMASCUS, March 28: Streets were deserted on Monday in Latakia, scene of Syria’s latest deadly violence, as citizens nationwide awaited an announcement by President Bashar al-Assad ending of 50 years of emergency rule. Funerals for a number of the victims of deadly shootings in the northern port city – some believed to be the work of snipers – were held on Monday as schools and businesses closed their doors, residents said, reached by telephone.“The city is calm this morning, but the shops are all closed and employees have not gone to work,” said Issam Khoury, a journalist based in Latakia, 350 kilometres (220 miles) northwest of Damascus.

“Most schools are closed as well and parents have decided not to send their children to any classes,” added Mr Khoury.

Parliamentarians held a minute of silence on Sunday to honour those killed in two weeks of unrest in Syria, where demonstrators earlier this month began taking to the streets to demand change.

The security situation in the country has worsened in past days, with reports of gangs wreaking havoc in Latakia, a multi-confessional city home to some 450,000 people, and sporadic bouts of violence in the southern governorate of Daraa. France on Monday warned its citizens against travelling to the two cities.

The government of Assad, who is now under domestic pressure unprecedented in his 11-year rule, has announced a string of reforms in a bid to quell a rising wave of dissent against his rule.

He is expected to address the people of Syria in the coming days.

Buthaina Shaaban, a top adviser to Assad, on Sunday told AFP authorities had decided to end the state of emergency, which came into effect when the ruling Baath party rose to power almost 50 years ago.

But it remains unclear what the decision will entail.

Syria’s emergency law imposes restrictions on public gatherings and movements.

It also authorises interrogation of any individual and the surveillance of personal communications as well as official control of the content of newspapers and other media before publication.

Activists estimate that some 130 people have been killed in the Syria pro-democracy protests, which began in Damascus on March 15 but quickly fizzled out, taking root instead in Latakia and Daraa, a tribal area on the Jordanian border.

Daraa has reportedly sustained the most casualties.

Syrian officials say 15 people have been killed, including two pro-democracy activists, and 185 wounded in Latakia since Friday.

Troops deployed in force in the once-scenic coastal resort, home to 450,000 people, where residents have erected barricades to protect their neighbourhoods against armed gangs that have taken to looting and vandalism.

Journalists’ access to Latakia has been severely restricted, but one shopkeeper contacted by AFP said residents there heard gunfire from automatic weapons until midnight on Sunday.

Shaaban said extremists and Palestinian refugees from a camp near Latakia aimed to fuel sectarian strife in the city, which is home to Christians, Sunni Muslims and Alawites, an offshoot of Shiite Islam.

The authorities have accused “armed gangs” and extremist Muslims of pushing peaceful rallies into violence.

“The Muslim Brothers never forgave, and they want to do it again. But they will fail again,” Shaaban said.

“I think they used what happened in Tunisia and Egypt to say that this is the same thing,” she added. “But it’s not the same thing.” Assad’s father, the late president Hafez al-Assad, dealt harshly with domestic opposition.

In 1982, Hafez al-Assad clamped down on Islamists in the town of Hama, where tens of thousands of people were killed in army bombardments on the Muslim Brotherhood.—AFP