Regime, Russia airstrikes kill 5 in Syria's Idlib

IDLIB, Syria

Five civilians were killed and 10 wounded in Wednesday airstrikes by the Assad regime and Russia in northwestern Syria, where a cease-fire is supposed to be in effect, said the White Helmets civil defense agency.

The targets included a hospital in the town of Tel Mannis, hit by Russian jets, causing the death of a medical staff, the civil defense group said..

Two people were killed in the town of Bashiriyya and two in the towns of Tukh and Maarshiman in the Idlib de-escalation zone.

Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

The Syrian regime and its allies, however, have consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the zone.

The de-escalation zone is currently home to some four million civilians, including hundreds of thousands displaced in recent years by regime forces from throughout the war-weary country.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.