WEB DESK /
At least 23 people were killed and 35 others were injured when three Russian warplanes launched airstrikes on opposition-controlled northwestern Idlib city late Monday, a Syrian civil defense official said.
Dozens of civilians were also wounded in the raids on Idlib, a provincial capital held by Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra Front and its allies since March last year, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. The strikes hit near a hospital and a public garden.
Al-Nusra is not party to a Russian- and US-brokered ceasefire that went into force on February 27 between Moscow-backed government forces and Washington-backed non-jihadist rebels.
Moscow has been carrying out an air campaign in support of its Damascus ally since September last year. It has been criticised for targeting non-jihadist rebels as well as Al-Qaeda and its rival the Islamic State group.
Abdurrazak Jubeiro, a civil defense official in Idlib, told an Agency that the airstrikes hit several targets in the city, including the al-Wataniand Ibn Sina hospital as well as a mosque.
The casualties included a number of women and children while civil defense rescue teams rushed to dig up collapsed homes to find the dead and the injured, Jubeiro said.
He added that two hospitals in total were hit in the strikes, including the Ibn Sina hospital, which was severely damaged and would not be able to provide crucial medical services anymore.
Russia launched its military intervention in Syria in September 2015 supposedly after a formal request by the Bashar al-Assad regime for military help.
In March, Russia decided to reduce its forces in the war-torn country.
More than 361,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict erupted in 2011.
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