Six people from one family, including two children, were killed in a Syrian army artillery strike on a rebel-held village in northwestern Syria on Saturday, activists from Syria said. the opposition. Residents said the family was outside their home enjoying the sunny weather and drinking tea when the shell hit. Low-flying reconnaissance planes surrounded the area, the village of Maarat al-Naasan in Idlib province, after the strike.

The opposition Syrian Civil Defense group, also known as the White Helmets, said the two children were aged three and seven. He said a total of 65 children have been killed in a new bombing campaign by the Russian-backed Syrian government targeting Idlib over the past six months. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor of the war in Syria, also reported the deaths. He said government forces also shelled areas around the villages of Kafr A’ama and Taqad, west of Aleppo city.

Idlib province is the last rebel stronghold in war-torn Syria and is home to around 3 million people, many of whom are internally displaced. It is regularly bombed by the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Syria’s decade-old conflict has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of the country’s 23 million pre-war inhabitants.

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