Syria war: Assad forces kill nine in Idlib, including seven children

Seven children were among nine civilians killed by pro-government artillery fire on Saturday in Syria's last major rebel stronghold of Idlib in the country's northwest, a UK-based activist group said.

The shelling on Saturday morning also wounded 16 others in several locations of the Jabal al-Zawiya area in the south of the stronghold, the Syria Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said.

It killed five members of the same family - a man, his wife, and their three children - in the village of Iblin, as well as two children in the village of Balyun, and two more children in the village of Balshun, SOHR added.

In Iblin, a photographer for Middle East Eye (MEE) saw the bodies of the family prepared for burial at a health dispensary.

A nurse on site confirmed to Agence France-Presse (AFP) that five members of the same family had been killed.

In Balyun, sources told MEE that an attack left two young girls dead, and wounded their parents.

Saturday's death toll is one of the highest since an international ceasefire came into force in March 2020 to protect the Idlib region - where more than 3.4 million civilians live - from an offensive by forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

But violations of the truce, brokered by Syrian President Assad's ally, Russia, and rebel backer, Turkey, are relatively frequent, as government forces maintain pressure on the rebel enclave.

In past weeks Russian warplanes have pounded the southern Idlib region in tandem with artillery shelling by Assad forces, according to the Syrian Observatory.

Meanwhile, there are growing concerns that Russia won’t extend an agreement to allow UN aid to enter Idlib from Turkey, which will expire on 10 July.

Last year Russia drastically reduced entry of UN aid to only one crossing, Bab al-Hawa, on the Turkish border.

The war in Syria has killed an estimated 500,000 people since it started in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful demonstrations.