Regime, Russian raids kill 6 civilians in Syria's Idlib

IDLIB, Syria

At least six civilians were killed when the airstrikes of Russia and Assad regime targeted Syria’s northwestern Idlib province on Wednesday, a local civil defense agency said.

Besides fatalities, the airstrikes left 10 civilians injured, said the White Helmets.

The warplanes struck the Saraqib district and several villages of Idlib, according to an opposition aircraft observatory.

Additionally, in the first half of November, attacks by the Assad regime and its supporter Russia have displaced some 40,000 civilians within the Idlib de-escalation zone, according to Syria’s Response Coordination Group, a local NGO.

Turkey and Russia agreed in September 2018 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 4 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 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.

*Writing by Burak Bir