Not long after Russia's foreign minister touted the Syrian president's "commitment" to ending violence, 42 more people were killed Wednesday in the devastated city of Homs, an opposition activist said.

The dead included three children, said Omar Shakir, who tallied the number after visiting and calling field hospitals in three Homs neighborhoods.

"There is nonstop shelling," Shakir said. He said those wounded by government troops must resort to the ill-equipped, makeshift clinics because rockets struck one of two hospitals; the other was taken over by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.

Eleven months into a government-led slaughter of dissidents, the situation has gone from unbearable to unimaginable.