IDLIB – According to the White Helmets civil defense agency, 39 people were killed in an explosion in Syria’s northwestern Idlib province on Sunday.
The blast took place in Sarmada district, where civilians displaced from the northern Homs province live. The exploded building in the Sarmada town is believed to have contained munitions belonging to an arms trafficker.
White Helmets director in Idlib Mustafa Haj Youssef told Anadolu Agency some 45 civilians have also been injured in the explosion, which destroyed two 6-storey buildings inhabited by displaced civilians.
According to Haj, 13 civilians have been rescued from under the debris of destroyed buildings.
It remains unclear what the cause of the explosion was.
In May Idlib was declared a “de-escalation zone” where acts of aggression were expressly forbidden. The Syrian conflict that began in early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on protesters with unexpected ferocity, continues ti break lives.
UN officials estimates that hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict and the death toll continues to rise.
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