Air strikes on a market killed at least 53 people, including children, in a town in northern Syria on Monday despite a \u201cde-escalation zone\u201d in place there, a monitor said.
\nThe Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it was not immediately clear whether the strikes on rebel-held Atareb had been carried out by Syrian warplanes, or those of Damascus\u2019s ally Russia.
\nThe monitor said three strikes hit the town\u2019s market, adding that five children were among the dead, as well as three policemen.
\nA photographer contributing to AFP saw massive destruction at the scene, with rubble from damaged buildings covering the street and panicked civilians carrying away the injured.
\nThree men helped one of those hit in the attack, his face drenched in blood and his features almost completely obscured.
\nNearby, the body of a man in a blue shirt and dark trousers lay where he had died.
\nCivil defense workers rushed alongside civilians to evacuate the injured, with one man in a thick beanie hat carrying a wailing child in a pink sweater away from the scene.
\nElsewhere, the bodies of at least three children were laid out on the ground, partly covered by thick bolts of fabric.
\nAtareb is in the west of Aleppo province, in an area that is part of a \u201cde-escalation zone\u201d agreed under a deal earlier this year between Syria\u2019s allies Russia and Iran, and rebel backer Turkey.
\nThe zone mostly covers neighboring Idlib province, which is largely held by opposition forces and a extremist group formerly affiliated with Al-Qaeda.
\nDespite the government\u2019s recapture of Aleppo city late last year, rebel groups maintain a presence in the west of the province.
\nRussia, a key ally of Syria\u2019s President Bashar al-Assad, began a bombing campaign in support of his government in 2015.
\nSince then, with Moscow\u2019s support the government has recaptured large swathes of territory from opposition forces.
\nMoscow has steered the so-called Astana process that in May led to a deal to create four so-called \u201cde-escalation zones\u201d across Syria.
\nThe zones have produced a drop in violence, but sporadic fighting and bombardment has continued, and promised humanitarian access has not materialized.
\nMore than 330,000 people have been killed in Syria since the conflict began in March 2011 with anti-government protests.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Air strikes on a market killed at least 53 people, including children, in a town in northern Syria on Monday despite a \u201cde-escalation zone\u201d in place there, a monitor said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":8139,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8136","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-c59-islamic-world"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n