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Syrian TV on Friday showed images of what appeared to be relative calm in Homs after government force drove rebels out of the opposition enclave of Baba Amro.

But British journalist Paul Conroy, who was wounded in Homs and is now in hospital in the UK, tells a different story.

He says the siege brought massive civilian casualties.

SOUNDBITE: Paul Conroy, wounded photographer, saying (English):

"It's systematic slaughter. It's not a war. The Free Syrian Army provide bread and meagre defence. This is not a war, it's a massacre."

Conroy says the scenes were like something from the First World War.

SOUNDBITE: Paul Conroy, wounded photographer, saying (English):

"I went into a building after my injury. It was a street. They put us in the safest house they could find. I left that building, the street had effectively gone. It looked like Grozny, like some of the French towns in World War One. There were women, children, screaming, panic. And people would come up to me and say 'Where's our help?' and I had no answers."

U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Friday spoke of grisly reports of torture and killings in Syria.

He told the General Assembly said the Syrian government had failed to protect its people.

SOUNDBITE: U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon saying (English):

"Civilian losses have clearly been heavy. We continue to receive grisly reports of summary executions, arbitrary detentions and torture."

While Syria's ambassador to the U.N. said Ban's report wasn't 'duly informed' about the true situation and said again that the opposition came mostly from terrorist groups, further social media video uploaded on Friday purportedly shows defiant protests in several other Syrian towns and cities.

Again the video couldn't be independently verified.

The footage appears to show demonstrators coming under fire, some of whom apparently pay with their lives.

Paul Chapman, Reuters