(Zaman Al Wasl)- Russian officials discussed with Bashar Assad in Damascus the need to de-escalate the situation in , northeast Syria, Russia’s foreign ministry said on Saturday, such a statement accompanied with heavy bombardment on northern Idlib province.
Rescuing Civil Defense Agency said the regime forces backed by Russia have carried out 4251 airstrikes on northwestern Syrias since last April.
Turkey and Russia agreed last September to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.
Under the deal, opposition groups in Idlib would remain in areas where they were already present, while Russia and Turkey would carry out joint patrols in the area to prevent a resumption of fighting.
Assad regime and its allies, however, have consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the de-escalation zone.
Since Turkey and Moscow hammered the deal on Sept. 17, some 950,000 civilians have been displaced. During the same period, a total of 1,282 civilians have been killed by Russian or regime airstrikes, among them were 219 women and 341 children, according to Anadolu Agency.
The de-escalation zone is currently home to some four million civilians, including hundreds of thousands displaced in recent years by regime forces from throughout the war-weary country.
Russia has long been accused of carrying out systematic attacks against hospitals and clinics in rebel-held areas as part of a strategy to help Assad secure victory in the eight-year-old war.
The Russian Air Force has repeatedly bombed hospitals in Syria in order to crush the last pockets of resistance to President Bashar al-Assad, according to an investigation by The New York Times.
The 12-hour period beginning on 5 May represents a small slice of the air war in Syria, but it is a microcosm of Russia’s four-year military intervention in Syria’s civil war. A new front in the conflict opened this week, when Turkish forces crossed the border as part of a campaign against a Kurdish-led militia.
Eight years of war in Syria have killed 560,000 people and driven half the pre-war population of 22 million from their homes, including more than 6 million as refugees to neighbouring countries.
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