BERLIN: Around 20 protesters broke into the Syrian Embassy in Berlin Friday, causing damage in several offices and daubing slogans on walls before being arrested, police said.
Then protesters who were all "Syrians or of Syrian origin," entered the embassy grounds at around 4:30 pm Friday (1530 GMT) and "destroyed furniture, hung a flag from a window," before writing slogans on the embassy walls, the police said in a statement.
Alerted to the intrusion "police arrived swiftly and arrests the protesters who put up no resistance," the statement added.
The intruders were released after supplying their identities.
A German foreign ministry spokesman said, in a separate statement, that "the acts committed against the Syrian embassy in Berlin must be condemned in the firmest manner."
"The government takes very seriously its responsibilities for the security of all the diplomatic and consular representations in Germany," the spokesman added.
Berlin's coordinator for Middle East policy, Boris Ruge, phoned the Syrian ambassador to brief him on the events and express his regret, the ministry added.
The ambassador, who was present when the police made their arrests, allowed the German authorities to search the premises to ensure there were no other protesters present.
He then lodged an official complaint and a police enquiry has been launched.
The break-in happened on a day of violence in Syria where regime forces killed at least 217 civilians, including women and children, in a "massacre" in the central city of Homs, a rights group said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the violence broke out after thousands of people across Syria defied the government crackdown to mark the 30th anniversary of a notorious 1982 massacre in the central city of Hama that killed thousands.
News of the latest deaths came as a diplomat in New York said members of the UN Security Council would meet Saturday morning for a vote on a resolution condemning the violent repression in Syria.
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