Regime and Russian fire has killed at least six civilians in northwestern Syria's Idlib province, a war monitor said Saturday, two weeks after Moscow declared a ceasefire in the jihadist-dominated region.
The truce, which brought a halt to four months of devastating bombardment on Idlib province by the government and its ally Russia, had largely held apart from sporadic artillery fire and air strikes.
But on Tuesday, Russia carried out its first air strikes in the area since the ceasefire began, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
On Friday, regime rocket fire on the towns of Maaret Al-Numan and Kafranbel in southern Idlib province killed five civilians including a child, the Observatory said.
A sixth civilian was killed in a Russian air strike in the rural west of the province, it added.
That brought to 11 the number killed since the ceasefire came into effect, according to the Britain-based monitor, which has a network of contacts across the war-torn country.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham alliance led by Al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate controls most of Idlib as well as parts of neighbouring Aleppo and Latakia provinces.
The region of around three million people, many of them dispaced by fighting in other areas, is one of the last holdouts of opposition to forces backing Bashar al-Assad.
The Observatory on Saturday reported regime fire in various parts of southern Idlib, including close to a Turkish military observation post.
Russian air raids have also targeted hardline jihadists in Idlib's western countryside and nearby parts of Latakia, it said.
The ceasefire is the second since Damascus escalated its operations in the area in April, which have since left at least 1100 civilians dead, according to Observatory figures, and which the UN says have forced more than 600,000 people to flee.
A UN inquiry into a series of regime and Russian attacks on UN-supported facilities in northwestern Idlib province will begin this month’s end, the international body announced Friday.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres initiated the review at the behest of the ambassadors of the U.S., U.K., France, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Indonesia, Kuwait, Peru and Poland who urged Guterres to look into attacks on medical facilities and possible abuse of the UN's deconfliction channel.
The investigation will be led by Nigerian Lt. Gen. Chikadibia Obiakor, and will include Janet Lim of Singapore, and Maria Santos Pais of Portugal.
At the time of the request Human Rights Watch offered strong support for the inquiry, saying the UN provided Russia, the regime and other parties with "coordinates of hospitals in Idlib to ensure their safety."
Mark Lowcock, the UN's humanitarian affairs coordinator, told the Security Council last month that the regime's more than three-month offensive in northwest Syria has left at least 17 villages in southern Idlib not only decimated but "emptied" as well.
"What you see is a level of destruction consistent with a bombing campaign aimed at a scorched earth policy," he said at the time.
The eight-year-old war has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and forced 13 million people from their homes, half of whom have left their shattered homeland.
Zaman Al Wasl, Agencies
Zaman Al Wasl
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