At Least 10 People Killed in Syrian Government Shelling of a Rebel-Held Village, the Opposition Says

11/28/2023

Syrian government forces shelled a northwestern village Saturday killing at least 10 people, including seven children, as they picked olives, a paramedic group and relatives of the victims said. 

The shelling of the village of Qawqafeen, in Idlib province, is the latest violation of a truce reached in March 2020 between Russia and Turkey, who back rival sides in Syria’s 12-year conflict that has killed half a million people. 

Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded over the past years in violations of the truce that ended a monthslong Russian-backed government offensive on northwestern Idlib province, the last major rebel stronghold in Syria. 

Idlib is home to more than 4 million people, many of them internally displaced by Syria’s conflict that broke out in March 2011. The war displaced half the country’s prewar population of 23 million and left large parts of Syria destroyed. 

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