At least six people were killed in intensified artillery shelling by the Assad regime forces on the village of Al-Ruffa in rural Idlib on Friday. Local activists said that the shelling forced many families to flee the area which is covered by the Idlib agreement. The shelling took place despite pledges by Russia to protect the area.
Local news networks reported that the Assad regime forces continued to violate the Turkish-Russian agreement through the intensification of shelling with heavy artillery and rockets.
The Emergency Response Coordinators in northern Syria on Saturday published a report detailing the Assad regime’s violations of the Idlib agreement. The aid group said that Assad forces continued to bomb areas in the demilitarized zone from which the rebel groups withdrew heavy weapons.
Similar shelling targeted western rural Aleppo on Thursday. The Emergency Response Coordinators said that the shelling mainly targeted the areas adjacent to the front lines. They added that the regime’s shelling targeted more than 16 villages and towns in rural Aleppo, 21 in rural Hama, five in rural Lattakia, and 15 in Idlib province.
The aid group called on sponsors of the Idlib agreement, especially the Russian side, to exercise pressure on the Assad regime to stop the violations.
The Syrian Coalition warned against allowing the Assad regime to wriggle out of its international commitments. It stressed that the Assad regime is seeking to sabotage the political process and prevent reaching a solution in accordance with the Geneva Communique of 2012 and UN Security Council resolution 2254 to achieve a genuine political transition. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department)
