Air strikes by Syrian or Russian warplanes killed at least 26 people, most of them school children, in a village in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province on Wednesday, rescue workers and a monitoring group said.
Idlib, near Aleppo in northwest Syria, contains the largest populated area controlled by rebels, both nationalist groups under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and extremist ones including the former al Qaeda affiliate Jabhat Fateh al-Sham.
The Civil Defence network, which operates in rebel-held areas in the country, said 20 of the dead in Wednesday’s attacks were children.
Photos taken at the scene showed buildings with walls reduced to rubble, including what appeared to be the school with upturned desks and chairs covered in dust.
A damaged classroom is pictured after shelling in the rebel held town of Hass, south of Idlib province, Syria October 26, 2016. PHOTO: REUTERS
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said the warplanes had struck several locations in Haas including an elementary and middle school, killing at least one teacher as well as the children.
It gave a lower toll of 15 children killed.
Western countries and international human rights groups have regularly highlighted the high number of civilian deaths reported after Syrian and Russian air strikes.
