Assad’s forces killed 103 people in Syria on Friday in the bombardment of the besieged city of Homs and in attacks on the countryside of Hama and the east and north of the country, the activist group Local Coordination Committees said.

Most of those killed were civilians, including 14 children and one woman, it said.

The killings continued the same day that Western and Arab nations meeting in Tunis mounted the biggest diplomatic push in weeks to end Syria's 11-month-old crackdown on the opposition.

However, other activists said that the total death toll for Friday was at least 50 Syrians killed.

The U.N. estimated in January that 5,400 people were killed in the conflict in 2011. Hundreds more have died since. Syrian activists say the death toll is more than 7,300. Overall figures cannot be independently confirmed because Syria has prevented most media from operating inside the country.

As government troops relentlessly shelled rebel-held neighborhoods in the besieged city of Homs, thousands of people in dozens of towns staged anti-regime protests under the slogan: “We will revolt for your sake, Baba Amr,” referring to the Homs neighborhood that has become the center of the Syrian revolt. Activists said at least 50 people were killed nationwide.

More than 60 nations meeting in Tunisia asked the United Nations to start planning for a civilian peacekeeping mission that would deploy after the Syrian regime halts its crackdown.

Still unwilling to commit to military intervention to end the bloodshed, the group offered nothing other than the threat of increasing isolation and sanctions to compel compliance from President Bashar al-Assad, who has ignored similar demands.

On Thursday, U.N.-appointed investigators in Geneva said they had compiled a list of Syrian officials accused of crimes against humanity in the crackdown. The list reaches as high as Assad.