Six civilians, including two children, were killed on Sunday in makeshift camps for internally displaced persons, which came under fire from regime rockets in northwestern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH) reported.
Rockets hit a camp and gatherings of displaced people in the Kafr Jales region, west of the city of Idleb, early in the morning, an AFP correspondent on the spot noted. Tents were destroyed and burned, and bloodstains and rocket launchers were visible.
Civil defense and local teams rescued the injured and took them to nearby hospitals. The bodies of two girls were lying on the ground, wrapped in blankets, according to the local AFP correspondent.
The shelling killed six displaced people, including two children, and injured more than 20, the observatory said, adding that more than 30 rockets fell on several areas west of Idlib, including the camps.
The rocket fire came on the day after five members of the regime’s forces were killed in south-west Idlib by shelling from a group affiliated with the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), according to the observatory.
About half of Idleb and bordering areas of neighboring Hama, Aleppo and Latakia provinces are dominated by HTS, the former Syrian branch of al-Qaeda, and other less influential rebel factions.
Three million people live in the region, about half of whom are refugees.
Despite sporadic clashes, a ceasefire negotiated by Moscow, an ally of Damascus, and Ankara, backing rebel groups, has been largely respected in the region since March 2020.
The war in Syria has killed nearly half a million people since 2011 and displaced tens of millions inside and outside the country.