CHILDREN were pictured being pulled from the rubble of buildings after regime airstrikes on one of the last rebel-held areas in Syria.
Refugees in the country’s northwest have described conditions as “like judgement day” as government forces, with support from the Russian army and Iranian-backed militias, launch an assault to retake the few remaining opposition areas.
Syria’s civil war, which began in 2011 after calls for the removal of President Bashar al-Assad were violently suppressed, has so far killed an estimated half a million people and left over six million displaced.
The humanitarian situation in rebel strongholds has deteriorated in recent years amid the refusal by regime forces to allow humanitarian aid to reach civilian populations and the targeting of hospitals with airstrikes.
Pictures showed the aftermath of a strike on the town of Ibbin Semaan in the countryside to the west of Aleppo on February 10.
Volunteers from the Syrian Civil Defence, better known as the White Helmets, could be seen digging in the rubble and carrying the injured – children among them – to receive medical care.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that raids in the area conducted by Russia on behalf of the regime left 14 people dead, including nine in one village alone.
Aid workers in the north and west of the Idlib and Aleppo provinces are now warning that the numbers of refugees in the area and the rising prices of basic goods could lead to a famine.
“The situation is 20 times worse than what it was last year,” Obaida Dandoush of Syrian NGO Syria Relief and Development told al-Jazeera.
“And over the span of last year, we had 1.2 million people displaced [in northwest Syria].”
As well as stopping aid reaching communities in need, the violence has also forced a number of international groups to withdraw from the country, meaning some camps were without supplies even before the fresh wave of unrest.
Those on the ground are reportedly facing severe shortages of food, clean water, medicine, warm clothes, fuel, and tents.
Saeed Ezz al-Din from Turkish humanitarian organisation IHH said that new camps will also be needed to accommodate the thousands additional people being displaced.
One 38-year-old woman, a widowed mother-of-five, told al-Jazeera she had fled the city of Saraqeb before it fell to the regime.
Her and her sister’s families now share two bare rooms between 20 people and struggle to buy food for their children.
The price of bread has increased by roughly 30 times in the last 12 months.
“I keep going only for the sake of my children,” she said.
“The situation is so bad, it is like Judgement Day.”
Today also saw five Turkish soldiers killed in clashes with Syrian government forces.
Turkey already hosts 3.6 million Syrian refugees, and has sent large reinforcements to Idlib as part of a bid to reduce fighting there.
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