A family drama, in the rebel-held province of Idlib. Five members of the same family, all civilians including three children, were killed in Russian strikes on the last major rebel stronghold in north-west Syria, rescuers and an NGO said on Tuesday. Russia, the main supporter of President Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, has intervened militarily in Syria since 2015 and regularly carries out strikes against the rebels who hold the Idlib region.
“On December 25 at 10 p.m., Russian fighter planes targeted houses inhabited by civilians” on the outskirts of the town of Armanaz, in the province of Idlib, Abdel Halim Shehab, a rescue worker, told AFP. White helmets. Rescuers removed “six members of the same family: the father, the mother and three of their children” from the rubble, while a fourth injured child survived, according to him.
A ceasefire decreed in 2020 but regularly violated
The rebel stronghold of Idlib, where some three million people live, is partly controlled by the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS). The Russian army and Syrian regime forces intensified their strikes against this enclave last October, in response to a drone attack against the Syrian army that left more than 100 dead in Homs.
On Sunday, the Syrian Ministry of Defense announced that it had shot down seven drones launched by “terrorist organizations” against the provinces of Homs and Aleppo. A ceasefire negotiated by Russia and Turkey was declared in Idlib after a regime offensive in March 2020, but it is regularly violated. The conflict in Syria, triggered in 2011 by the repression of pro-democracy demonstrations, has left more than half a million dead and divided the country, even if the regime has regained control of a large part of the territory with the support from its Russian and Iranian allies.