Syrian regime forces shelled tent settlements housing families displaced by the country’s conflict in the northwest early Sunday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens.
The shelling is the latest violation of a truce reached between Russia and Türkiye in March 2020 that ended a Russian-backed regime offensive on Idlib province that is the last major opposition-held stronghold in Syria.
The truce has been repeatedly violated over the past two years killing and wounding scores of people.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor, reported that regime forces fired about 30 rockets toward opposition-held areas, including the Maram camp Sunday morning killing six and wounding 25. It said the dead included two children and one woman.
The tent settlement, known as the Maram camp, is just northwest of the provincial capital of Idlib.
Local civil defense officials reported that six people were killed, including two children and a woman, and 66 injured in shelling targeting at least three camps west of the capital.
On another account, the White Helmets civil defense group reported that the number of injured was at 75.
“Six civilians, including two children and a woman, were killed and 75 others injured after the regime forces and Russia committed a massacre west Idlib today, targeting IDP (internally displaced people) camps with surface-to-surface missiles loaded with internationally prohibited cluster bombs,” the group wrote on Twitter.
The Idlib region bordering Türkiye is home to about 3 million people and is one of the last pockets to oppose Damascus.
For years, the Assad regime has ignored the needs and safety of the Syrian people, only eyeing further territory gains and crushing the opposition. With this aim, the regime has for years bombed civilian facilities such as schools, hospitals and residential areas, causing the displacement of almost half of the country's population.
