Heavy bombardment by the Syrian army of the jihadist-controlled Idlib region has killed 22 civilians, a monitor says, the latest violence to threaten a seven-month-old truce.
Army artillery and rocket fire on the Idlib towns of Kafrnabel and Maaret al-Noman killed 13 people earlier today, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says. Late last night, shelling of adjacent jihadist-held areas of Hama and Aleppo provinces killed nine people, according to the Britain-based watchdog.
The UN humanitarian office says that the escalating violence has already killed 90 civilians in the Idlib region in March, nearly half of them children.
The ceasefire was brokered by the main foreign backers of the warring parties in September to head off a government offensive that prompted UN warnings of humanitarian disaster for the region’s three million residents.
But since the region was overrun by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance led by former Al-Qaeda fighters in January, the fragile truce has come under mounting assault.
— Agencies