BALADI NEWS
Two rescuers were among eight civilians killed in Russian and regime airstrikes Wednesday on violence-plagued northwest Syria, a war monitor said, in the latest attack against relief workers in the region.
The two civil defense workers, known as the White Helmets, were killed after Russian air strikes hit their ambulance in the town of Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The rescue group said a “double-tap attack” by Russian warplanes had “targeted” rescue workers repeatedly as they were evacuating injured civilians from the town. Five other volunteers were also wounded, the group said.
The latest attack came nearly one week after regime air strikes on an ambulance in the town of Maaret al-Numan killed three rescue workers. “The world continues to fail to protect us and other humanitarian workers,” the group said in a statement on social media.
Six other civilians were killed Wednesday in a series of regime air strikes on several parts of the Idlib region, which is home to around three million people, the Britain-based war monitor said.
Idlib and parts of neighboring Hama, Aleppo and Latakia provinces were supposed to be protected by a buffer zone under a September agreement between Russia and Turkey.
But the region has come under increased bombardment by the regime and its Russian ally since Hayat Tahrir al-Sham seized most of the province at the start of the year.
Violence spiked in April, leaving hundreds of civilians dead, according to the Observatory.
The flare-up has also displaced more than 330,000 others, according to the United Nations, sparking fears of one of the worst humanitarian disasters in Syria’s eight-year conflict.
Source: Al-Arabiya
