Al-Jadidah, Syria (Washington Insider Magazine) – According to the Syrian Civil Defence, popularly known as the White Helmets, seven people, including 4 children from one family, have been killed in a Russian airstrike in northern Syria’s opposition-held Idlib province.
12 additional people were hurt in the incident on Friday that took place in the village of al-Jadidah, close to Jisr al-Shughour. Eight of the wounded were kids.
The neighborhood, which is remote from the main lines of the conflict, had lately seen relative peace until the strike, which was the first of its sort in months.
Two Russian Su-34 aircraft hit the region with 4 air raids in the early morning, a local observer told Al Jazeera. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, headquartered in Britain, added that four attacks had been carried out by Russian aircraft.
White Helmets deputy director Munir al-Mustafa reported that the group’s workers in the region had discovered seven corpses and sent 12 injured persons to a nearby hospital. He also mentioned that the attacks had struck a chicken farm and a home for a displaced family outside of al-Jadidah.
In the town of al-Qaniyah, a surgeon named Ahmed al-Khatib verified that the hospital had received Twelve wounded patients, most of whom were youngsters, and that 7 individuals had passed away, including the 4 young children who ranged in age from one to seven.
2 boys and 2 girls’ bodies were on the hospital floor covered in blankets; the girls’ hair was still tied in red hair bows when they died.
The victims’ families found it impossible to understand what had occurred.
One of the kid’s relatives sat sobbing close to their bodies as they tried to understand why the tragedy had occurred.
Ahmed Abdul Hayy, 36, a native of the government-controlled Hama province, claimed that the strike had damaged his home and resulted in the deaths of several of his family members.
The attack was condemned by Mark Cutts, the deputy regional humanitarian coordinator for the Syria Crisis at the UN.
Attacks by the Syrian government in Idlib had mostly targeted the southern province’s Jabal al-Zawiya region.
Along with recent efforts by state forces to expand in Maarat al-Naasan, in the east of Idlib, the level of shelling between opposition and government forces in Idlib has grown in recent weeks.
The increase in bloodshed comes as Turkey, in defiance of the Syrian government, Iran, and Russia, continues to assert that it will conduct a military campaign against the largely Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces.
Syria’s 2011 revolt descended into war as the government forcefully put down the nation’s protest movement.
As a result of Russian engagement on the government’s side in 2015, Idlib is presently the sole province that is mostly controlled by the opposition.
According to the UN, the war has claimed the lives of more than 300,000 civilians.
