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Civilian death toll mounts as Syrian offensive widens

17 August 2019 18:17 (UTC +04:00)

Air strikes have killed more than two dozen civilians including 11 children in rebel-held northwestern Syria in the last two days in an escalation of a Russian-backed offensive, a war monitor and local activists said on Saturday, APA reports citing Reuters.

An air strike in the village of Deir killed seven people, mostly children, on Saturday morning, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. On Friday, air strikes in the village of al-Haas killed 13 people. The dead included a pregnant woman and her unborn baby, local activists and the Observatory said.

They had been seeking shelter after fleeing another area.

Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Observatory said the government’s aim appeared to be force civilians to flee from areas that had been relatively unscathed in a military escalation that began in late April.