Failed ceasefire: 1,200 ground and air strikes in 48 hours kill and injured over 100 people, while ongoing battles in rural Idlib leave 61 dead of all warring forces.
The fragile ceasefire in “Putin – Erdogan” area that came into force on Sunday, hardly completed its third day before the Russian warplanes resumed their intense bombardment on Idlib province. On Wednesday the ceasefire appeared to collapse, after squadrons of regime and Russian aircraft hit the “de-escalation” zone with more than 175 airstrikes.
Wednesday’s intensive aerial bombardment killed 20 civilians in Idlib and injured 49 others. the deaths were 19 civilians including three children and one member of the Civil Defense, were killed in bombardment by regime warplanes on Idlib city, and one civilian was killed in airstrikes by the regime warplanes on Hass town in the southern countryside of Idlib.
The regime ground forces targeted “Putin – Erdogan” area with more than 560 rocket and artillery shells on Wednesday only.
The regime forces unleashed a ground attack in the early hours of Thursday morning, on frontline areas, east of Saraqib and south of Maarrat Al-Nu’man, through which they captured Abu Juraif and Tal Khatrah villages before the factions recovered Abu Juraif village in counterattack.
Yesterday’s battles in east Idlib caused the killing of 32 regime soldiers and loyalists, and 29 fighters of the factions 23 of whom are jihadis.
On Thursday, the regime and Russian aircraft carried out more than 93 airstrikes, in addition to 370 rocket and artillery shells fired by the ground forces on different places in Aleppo and Idlib.
SOHR activists also monitored yesterday, displacement of residents of villages and towns in the western countryside of Aleppo for fear of military operation that is expected to be carried out by the regime forces in the next few days.
The jihadi groups also had their share of civilian death toll with eight civilian fatalities, in a massacre their committed by firing several rockets on Al-Sukkari neighborhood in the eastern part of the regime-controlled city of Aleppo. The shelling left 25 other civilians injured.