A child has been reported injured after Russian jet fighters bombed an area of Syria near the Turkish border.
Eight airstrikes on Saturday, 30 October, hit the Salwa and Qah areas of northern Syria, north of Idlib and just six kilometres from the Turkish border. The area contains more than 14 camps housing displaced Syrians.
The jets reportedly used high explosive weaponry on the area, shrapnel from which landed on a tent, leading to the child being injured.
A mountainous area near Salwa was also targeted in the raids, which was formerly a rebel base, local reports indicate. No casualties in this air raid have been reported.
The displacement camps have become home to thousands of Syrians, who have fled their homes after years of fighting. Local reports suggest that Russia’s targeting of the camps is a recent development, and there is speculation in the area that the attacks were an attempt to put pressure on the Turkish government to concede various demands from the regime and its Russian and Iranian supporters.
Saturday’s attacks are just the latest in and around Idlib by the Syrian regime and its allied forces.
It is thought that 45 such air strikes have taken place in the area, a so-called “de-escalation zone”, over the past month.
And on the ground, regime forces working with Iranian militias are said to have taken part in nearly 200 attacks around Idlib in recent weeks, causing the deaths of 21 civilians, seven of whom were children.
Civilians have also had to avoid clashes involving heavy weaponry between Syrian forces and opposition ground in the countryside around Idlib.
The regime is focusing its attacks on Idlib as it is seen as the last remaining outpost of opposition to its authority. Human rights groups fear that such a takeover would see potentially millions of refugees attempting to enter Turkey.
Hundreds of thousands are thought to have been killed and millions displaced over the past ten years in Syria, as the regime battles to crush opposition that initially emerged during the Arab Spring.
