Published: 05.02.19 , 12:33
Russian and Syrian forces intensified air strikes and ground shelling in northwestern Syria overnight in one of the heaviest assaults on the last rebel bastion in recent months, opposition members, rescuers and residents said on Thursday.
The targeted villages and towns in northern Hama and southern Idlib fall within a demilitarized zone agreed last September between Russia
and Turkey. Earlier this week Washington warned violence in the buffer zone “will result in the destabilization of the region”.
Since Tuesday the Russian and Syrian military attacks have forced thousands of civilians to flee to camps further north along the Turkish border and damaged four medical facilities, according to Idlib civil defence officials and a U.S. medical aid organisation working in the area.
“Medical facilities are being evacuated, leaving the most vulnerable with no access to medical care. We are on the edge of a humanitarian catastrophe,” Khaula Sawah, vice president of the U.S.-based Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations -USA (UOSSM US) said in a statement on Wednesday.
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