IDLIB, Syria
Anadolu Agency on Thursday captured footage of an internally displaced people (IDP) camp in Syria which came under attack.
The Qah camp in Idlib was hit by rockets on Wednesday by Iran-backed groups supporting the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.
The attack on the de-escalation zone killed 12 civilians, including children, and injured 40.
Ahmet Zidan, a resident of the camp, described the attack as a genocide.
"People fled in panic and others took refuge in the olive fields,” he said.
Another resident Abu Ammar said: “Regime forces started to bomb not just their homes but also the tents they took shelter in.”
“Immediately after the attack, the tent camp, where about 500 families lived, was evacuated,” Ammar added.
Turkey and Russia agreed in September 2018 to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone where acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.
The Syrian regime and its allies, however, have consistently broken the terms of the cease-fire, launching frequent attacks inside the zone.
The de-escalation zone is currently home to some four million civilians, including hundreds of thousands displaced in recent years by regime forces from throughout the war-weary country.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.
Since then, hundreds of thousands of people have been killed and more than 10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.
* Writing by Burak Dag
