The volunteer rescue organization, known as the White Helmets, said the Assad regime struck a village in Hama Province with artillery shells on Sunday. The shelling landed on residential neighborhoods in the village of Qastoun, killing four children from the same family and seriously injuring five others. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a war monitor, confirmed the killing of four children.
Northwestern Syria has been undergoing military escalation despite a ceasefire brokered by Turkey and Russia last year to which the Assad regime agreed. The regime has been consistently violating the terms of the ceasefire by launching attacks inside the de-escalation zone.
The shelling took place close to the Idlib region where nearly three million people live, with two-thirds of them being displaced from other parts of the country during the decade-long civil war.
According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), around 75% of the total population depends on humanitarian aid to meet their basic needs. 1.6 million people continue to live in camps or informal settlements under abysmal conditions. The ongoing pandemic and high temperatures imposed harsher conditions on civilians trying to survive.
