Syria
A camp on the near Sarmin, Idlib on fire after an alleged Syrian government rocket attack struck the facility, killing two civilians, on September 23, 2023. Photo: White Helmets
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least two civilians were killed on Saturday when an alleged Syrian regime rocket barrage struck a displacement camp in the northwestern rebel-held Idlib province, a rescue group reported.
“Two civilians were killed (an elderly man and a woman) and two others were injured (a child in critical condition and a man) by regime forces rocket strikes that targeted a camp in a residential area on the outskirts of Sarmin in the eastern countryside of Idlib,” the White Helmets rescue group said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
“The bombing also led to a fire in the camp,” the group said, adding that they had put out the fire, treated the injured, and removed the bodies of the dead.
The area is among a stretch of frontline between Syrian government forces and the jihadist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda.
HTS is the prominent force among dozens of rebel factions operating in the area and has been internationally recognized as a terrorist organization.
Half of Idlib province, as well as parts of Aleppo, Hama, and Latakia provinces, are the last rebel-held bastions in the country after President Bashar al-Assad, with Russian and Iranian support, seized back swathes of territory over the course of the brutal Syrian civil war, which erupted in 2011.
Last month, at least eight HTS members were killed when Russian airstrikes targeted their base on the outskirts of Idlib.
In June, artillery shelling by Syrian government forces killed three civilians in rebel-held areas of Aleppo province.
Over 13 million Syrians have been displaced since the start of the civil war, more than six million of which are refugees who have fled the war-torn country, according to a report from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
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