Six civilians, including two children, were killed on Saturday in a bombardment by Syrian regime forces in the northwestern province of Idlib, the country's last major rebel and jihadist stronghold, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. (OSDH).
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An AFP photographer present in the locality of Maarat al-Naassane, close to areas controlled by the regime, confirmed having seen the bodies.
According to him, the bombardment took place around 11:30 GMT and was followed by other shots.
"
The shell fell on a house where there were civilians, killing six people from the same family, two children, two women and two men
," said the OSDH.
According to the same source, other people, including a child, were seriously injured.
Since the start of the war in Syria in 2011, regime forces have regularly targeted residential neighborhoods in military attacks on opposition strongholds.
The Idleb region is home to around three million people, two-thirds of whom are displaced from other parts of Syria.
The jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Cham, a former Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, and its allies control about half of the province as well as parts of neighboring provinces.
The region has been under a ceasefire since March 2020, following a three-month regime offensive that displaced nearly a million people, according to the UN.
Despite repeated violations, the ceasefire was generally respected but, since June 2021, regime forces have intensified their bombardments in the south of the region.
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The Syrian conflict has killed an estimated half a million people, devastated infrastructure and caused the largest displacement of people since World War II.