Syrian regime fire killed at least five civilians, including two children, in Idleb, the last major rebel stronghold in the northwest of the country, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) reported on Sunday.
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Three women were also among those killed Saturday evening in the village of Ehsim, south of Idleb, said the NGO, which has a large network of sources in the country at war. An AFP photographer in Ehsim saw rescue workers working after midnight under floodlights to retrieve a woman's body from the rubble of a collapsed ceiling. Wrapping her body in a blanket, they then transported her to an ambulance.
A family survivor told AFP visitors gathered at the house to congratulate a family member on their marriage. The bombing came just hours after President Bashar al-Assad was sworn in for a fourth term, who pledged to “
liberate
” areas still out of government control.
On Saturday, rockets fired by pro-government forces killed six people, including three children and a rescuer in Sarja, a village in the south of Idleb province.
The jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTS), the former Syrian arm of al-Qaeda, and its allies, control about half of Idleb province as well as parts of the neighboring provinces of Hama, Latakia and from Aleppo.
Almost three million people live in the region, two-thirds of whom have been displaced from other localities recaptured by the regime.
Since its outbreak in 2011, the Syrian conflict has killed nearly half a million people, according to the Observatory, and resulted in the displacement of millions more inside and outside the country.