UN human rights Chief Navi Pillay voiced concern over the situation in Syria, saying the violence in the crisis-hit country reached “horrific dimensions.”

UN human rights Chief Navi Pillay voiced concern over the situation in Syria, saying the violence in the crisis-hit country reached “horrific dimensions.”

"A humanitarian, political and social disaster is already upon us, and what looms is truly a nightmare," Pillay told diplomats as she opened one of the UN Human Rights Council's four annual sessions in Geneva.

She warned that the rights violations in Syria had "reached horrific dimensions," describing the situation in the country as "an intolerable affront to the human conscience."

"Confronted with the flagrant disregard of international law and human life on every side, I feel utter dismay," she said, noting that "we in the international community are failing to meet our fundamental obligations to the victims."

"It sometimes seems that we can do little more than cry out in the darkness and try to count the dead," Pillay added.

She slammed both the Syrian government and the foreign-backed armed opposition, accusing them of human rights violations.

She said that Syrian government was using "indiscriminate and disproportionate force in residential areas," including reports of the direct targeting of schools and hospitals.

Pillay also decried "wanton human rights violations" by armed groups, including extrajudicial killings and accounts that some women and girls have been forced to marry combatants.