JAKARTA - Russian fighter jets launched airstrikes on the northwestern Syrian city of Idlib on Sunday, according to eyewitnesses and rebel sources, marking the first explosion at the last opposition stronghold in 2022.
High-altitude warplanes, which the tracking center said were Russian Sukhoi jets, dropped bombs on several towns and the main water pumping station serving the overcrowded city of Idlib, which has a population of more than one million people.
No comment was immediately available from Russia or the Syrian army, which said it was targeting hideouts for the militant groups that control the region but denied any attacks on civilians.
Meanwhile, an official at the city's water utility service said, as a result of the airstrike, the facility was unable to function.
Separately, a senior UN official who confirmed the water station was "severely damaged" by the bombings said such attacks exacerbated the humanitarian plight of millions of Syrian refugees.
"The continued destruction of civilian infrastructure will only cause more suffering for civilians. Attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure must stop", UN deputy regional humanitarian coordinator Mark Cutts criticized in a tweet.
Meanwhile, witnesses said attacks in the past 24 hours in the rebel-held enclave also hit farms and poultry farms near Bab al Hawa's border with Turkey.
"Russia is focused on infrastructure and economic assets. This is to add to the suffering of the people", said Abu Hazem Idlibi, an official in the opposition government.
Other targets included villages in the Jabal al-Zawiya region in southern Idlib province, with no immediate reports of casualties, residents and rescue teams said.
Earlier, a series of attacks after midnight on Saturday hit makeshift camps housing thousands of displaced families near Jisr al Shuqhur, west of Idlib with two children and a woman killed and 10 civilians injured, the civil defense service said.
SEE ALSO:
There has been a relative lull in airstrikes since November, after a new Russian-led campaign was followed by Turkish army reinforcements inside the enclave, raising prospects for a wider resumption of violence.
To note, a deal brokered nearly two years ago between Russia, which supports Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces, and Turkey, which supports opposition groups, ended fighting that has displaced more than a million people in recent months.
The English, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic, and French versions are automatically generated by the AI. So there may still be inaccuracies in translating, please always see Indonesian as our main language. (system supported by DigitalSiber.id)
Most Popular Tags
#Prabowo Subianto #New Year #Mother's Day #nataru #NatalPopular
