Gunfire punctuated by explosions. These are the sounds of Homs, the city at the heart of the Syria's 11-month bloody uprising.

This video uploaded to a social media website purportedly shows a homes minutes after an artillery attack. Reuters cannot independently verify its content.

The bloodshed in Homs followed a day of violence across Syria on Friday, when bombings targeting security bases killed at least 28 people in Aleppo and rebel fighters battled troops in a Damascus suburb after dark.

Assad has ignored repeated international appeals, the latest from the European Union, to halt his crackdown.

The bloodshed has sent an estimated 20,000 Syrians fleeing into neighboring countries.

In Wadi Khaled on the Lebanon border with Syria, hundreds of refugees have been living in a school. Many have grisly tales of a regime they say is committed to retribution. Thirty-year-old Abu Fahed says he's haunted by memories of his three-and-a-half year old son who was murdered by Syrian forces.

SOUNDBITE: Syrian refugee Abu Fahed saying: ''They killed him because I am a wanted man. I ran away because I was wanted and I couldn't stay at home, they came and took my child as a hostage in return for me. They said, hand yourself and we will return your child but I am sure that from the first day they took him, they executed him. A kid who is three-and-a- half, if they hit him twice on the face, they would kill him. But we know how they kill -- they brought him to my house, dead, his fingers and ears were cut off and three bullets in his chest. So they tortured him, a torture that no one know. We used to hear about Abu Ghraib and we used to say what are they doing to the people but when we started suffering, it turns out Abu Ghraib is just a drop in the sea of Assad's torture.''

It's a sentiment shared by most of these refugees --- all of whom say they have lost hope getting help from any country or the United Nations.

Deborah Gembara, Reuters.