BALADI NEWS
A children's advocacy group warned Friday that half of nearly 400,000 displaced people in the Syrian regime's two-month-long offensive on the country's last rebel-held region are children, calling it a wave of displacement unlike anything seen before in the war in Syria.
The offensive by Syrian regime forces, backed by ally Russia, has focused mainly on Idlib province in the northwest, and also lately on neighboring Aleppo. It is an attempt to seize control of a strategic highway that links the capital, Damascus, and the north. The push has accelerated in the last two weeks and regime forces Wednesday seized control of the key town of Maaret al-Nouman, which sits along the highway.
The United Nations has estimated that 390,000 Syrians have been displaced over the past two months - 315,000 in December and 75,000 in January.
According to the advocacy group Save the Children, half of those displaced are children, adding that at least 37,000 children were forced to flee in the month of January.
During a one-week period in mid- January, 34 children and 13 women were killed, the U.N. said.
Trucks and other vehicles have crammed the roads as civilians - some of them already displaced by earlier fighting - packed up their meager belongings to leave towns and villages under attack.
Save the Children said its advocacy partners working in Idlib and Aleppo described miles of convoys and said "the sheer scale of displacement is unlike anything they have seen before."
Bashar Assad's forces launched the offensive despite a cease-fire deal struck between Russia and Turkey, which support opposite sides of the conflict. Turkey, which backs the Syrian opposition, has said Russia, a staunch Assad ally, has not abided by previous agreements to end violence.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Friday that Ankara could use military force to bring stability to Idlib after the offensive sent tens of thousands of people fleeing toward the Turkish border.
Source: Daily Mail.