A mother and her boy child lost their lives in Russian airstrikes that hit Mount Zawiya in northern Idleb province, local activists said Monday.
The cluster-bomb attack hit the village of al-Bara south of Idleb city.
Last Wednesday, two civilians were killed and four others injured in the de-escalation zone when regime forces carried out surface-to-surface missiles attack on Birnas village.
In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idleb into a de-escalation zone, where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.
Under the deal, opposition groups in Idleb would remain in areas where they were already present, while Russia and Turkey would carry out joint patrols in the area to prevent a resumption of fighting.
Assad regime and its allies, however, have consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the de-escalation zone.
Since Turkey and Moscow hammered the deal on Sept. 17, 2018, some 950,000 civilians have been displaced. During the same period, a total of 1,282 civilians have been killed by Russian or regime airstrikes, among them were 219 women and 341 children, according to Anadolu Agency.
The de-escalation zone is currently home to some four million civilians, including hundreds of thousands displaced in recent years by regime forces from throughout the war-weary country.
Russia has long been accused of carrying out systematic attacks against hospitals and clinics in rebel-held areas as part of a strategy to help Assad secure victory in the eight-year-old war.
The Russian Air Force has repeatedly bombed hospitals in Syria in order to crush the last pockets of resistance to President Bashar al-Assad, according to an investigation by The New York Times.
An analysis of previously unpublished Russian Air Force radio recordings, plane-spotter logs and witness accounts allowed The New York Times to trace the bombings of four hospitals in just 12 hours in May and tie Russian pilots to each one.
The 12-hour period beginning on May, 5, 2019, represents a small slice of the air war in Syria, but it is a microcosm of Russia’s four-year military intervention in Syria’s civil war. A new front in the conflict opened this week, when Turkish forces crossed the border as part of a campaign against a Kurdish-led militia.
This article was edited by The Syrian Observer. The Syrian Observer has not verified the content of this story. Responsibility for the information and views set out in this article lies entirely with the author.
