Syria
weapons depot blast kills 12 civilians: monitor
Syria
weapons depot blast kills 12 civilians: monitor
AFP•August
12, 2018
Destroyed
buildings are seen on August 12, 2018 following an explosion that reportedly
killed 12 people at an arms depot in a residential area in the Syrian town of
Sarmada, Idlib province (AFP Photo/OMAR HAJ KADOUR)
More
Beirut
(AFP) - An explosion of unknown origin at a weapons depot in the northwestern
Syrian province of Idlib killed at least 12 civilians on Sunday, a war monitor
said.
An
AFP correspondent at the site in the rebel-held town of Sarmada near the
Turkish border said the explosion caused two buildings to collapse.
On
Sunday morning, rescue workers used a bulldozer to remove rubble and extract
trapped people, the correspondent said.
Rami
Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor, said the
death toll could rise as dozens were still missing.
"The
explosion occurred in a weapons depot in a residential building in
Sarmada," the head of the Britain based monitor said.
But
the cause of the blast was "not yet clear", Abdel Rahman added.
A
rescue worker carried the motionless body of a small child from the wreckage to
an ambulance, the AFP correspondent said.
Behind mounds of rubble, the facade of a
building was scorched black, due to a fire after the blast.
A civil defence source told AFP that women
and children were among the dead.
But rescue workers had pulled out
"five people who were still alive", the source said.
Most of Idlib is controlled by rebels and
jihadists led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, but the Islamic State group also has
sleeper cells in the area.
The regime holds a small slither of
southeastern Idlib.
In recent months, a series of explosions
and assassinations -- mainly targeting rebel officials and fighters -- have
rocked the province.
While some attacks have been claimed by
IS, most are the result of infighting since last year between various other
groups.
In recent days, regime forces have ramped
up their deadly bombardment of southern Idlib and sent reinforcements to nearby
areas they control.
President Bashar al-Assad has warned that
government forces intend to retake Idlib, after his Russia-backed regime
regained control of swathes of rebel held territory elsewhere.
Around 2.5 million people live in the
province, half of them displaced by fighting in other parts of the country.
More than 350,000 people have been killed
and millions displaced since Syria's civil war started in 2011 with the brutal
repression of anti-government protests.
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