At least 43 people have been killed in Russian raids on a market in northwestern Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, but Moscow denied the attacks, while the region is under constant bombardment for nearly three months.
The province of Idlib and adjacent areas, where live about three million people, an escalation in the bombing of Syria and Russia since the end of April, accompanied by fierce fighting concentrated in the northern Hama.
According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, yesterday, the launch of Russian aircraft raids several «aimed at a market for the sale of vegetables in bulk and buildings in the vicinity in the city of Ma'arat al-Nu'man» rural Idlib South.
At least 43 people were killed and 45 injured, some of them critically, while search for missing persons continues under the rubble.
The White Helmets (Civil Defense in the areas of faction control) declared that one of its volunteers was among those killed.
The Russian defense ministry said in a statement carried by the government agency «Tass» accused of launching raids «false statements». It stressed that «the Russian air force did not carry out any tasks» in that region of Syria.
In Ma'ra al-Nu'man, an AFP collaborator saw civilians helping rescuers carry bloodied bodies and transport them to ambulances.
The shelling, according to the head of the local council in the city of Ma'arat al-Nu'man Bilal Zekri, at 8:00 am, at a time when people go out to spend their needs and their work.
Militant factions are targeted by areas under Syrian army control. The official Syrian news agency SANA reported yesterday that seven civilians, including two children, were killed by a rocket-propelled grenade attack on the village of Naor-Gorin in northern Hama.
The Vatican reported yesterday, Damascus, its concern about the situation of civilians in Idlib. He announced in a brief statement that the Minister of Social Affairs Cardinal Peter Turkson met with the papal ambassador in Damascus Cardinal Mario Zenari, President Bashar al-Assad, yesterday, and delivered a message from Pope Francis, expressing "deep concern about the humanitarian situation in Syria, Idlib. The United Nations urged all parties to the conflict to "calm the situation in north-west Syria and re-commit to the ceasefire."
"The region is rapidly becoming one of the most dangerous places in the world today for civilians and humanitarian workers," said David Swanson, spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).
This comes at a time when the authorities of the state of Istanbul, yesterday, until 20 August, the Syrians residing illegally in the city to leave, an expulsion campaign for the Syrians began several days ago.