25 January 2019•Update: 25 January 2019
By Esref Musa and Burak Karacaoglu
IDLIB, Syria
Ongoing regime attacks are destabilizing Syria’s northwestern Idlib province despite a demilitarization agreement reached late last year in the Russian city of Sochi.
Last September, Russia and Turkey agreed to set up a de-escalation zone in Idlib -- in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited -- to allow the return of thousands of displaced Syrians to their homes.
Drone footage obtained by Anadolu Agency in Idlib’s southern town of Al-Latamne shows the extent of the devastation to which the area has been subject for the last eight years, with many homes, schools and mosques in ruins.
Local resident Mahmoud Hamavi said regime forces had most recently attacked a local civil-defense center.
"Civilians will either have to go up north, where there are refugee camps, or die here,” he said. “But even the camps aren’t safe anymore due to heavy rainfall.”
Hamavi added: “People are left with only one option: to try to make it to Europe through Turkey.”
Ahmad Mansour, another town resident, told Anadolu Agency that most local people had felt relieved after September’s agreement between Ankara and Moscow.
The repercussions of Sochi were very positive here; people started returning home,” Mansour said. “But continued violations by the regime and its Iranian allies forced many of them to go back.”
He also called on aid organizations to assist local residents, who, he said, were being “tormented” by harsh winter conditions in the region.
Galib Hussain, a school principal in Al-Latamne, said that, even though the town is solely populated by civilians, local schools have had to suspend activities due to ongoing attacks by the regime and its allies.
"Over a thousand families have had to go back to refugee camps or safe areas since the Sochi agreement," he said.
