BALADI NEWS
At least 17 villages have been “completely destroyed” as the regime of Bashar al-Assad and its principal international ally, Russia, press a military offensive on northwestern Syria’s Idlib province, the UN said Tuesday, reports Anadolu Agency.
Mark Lowcock, the UN’s humanitarian affairs coordinator, told the Security Council that the regime’s more than three-month offensive has left villages in southern Idlib not only decimated but “emptied” as well.
“For more than 90 days now bombing and shelling by the Government of Syria and the Russian Federation has produced carnage in the so-called de-escalation zone of Idlib,” Lowcock said. “What you see is a level of destruction consistent with a bombing campaign aimed at a scorched earth policy.”
The area is currently inhabited by about 4 million civilians, including hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the regime and allied forces from their cities and towns throughout the war-weary country.
Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million others displaced during the course of Syria’s more than eight-year conflict.
Source: MEMO.