Syria airstrikes kill ten children amid evacuation deals

Syria airstrikes kill ten children amid evacuation deals
Airstrikes in northeastern Syria have killed 23 civilians, including 10 children, in the latest bloody bombing.
2 min read
01 May, 2018
The evacuation deals are little more than capitulation [Getty]

At least 23 civilians, including ten children, were killed in airstrikes on a village held by the Islamic State group in northeastern Syria on Tuesday, a war monitor reported.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said it was unclear immediately "if the US-led international coalition or Iraqi forces carried out the strike".

The airstrikes carried out hit the village of al-Qasr in the north-eastern province of Hassakeh.

A series of evacuation deals have been struck amid intense military offensives.

Earlier in the day, Syrian regime media claimed that 42 people who were held for years by rebels insurgents were released as part of a deal to hand over areas around Damascus back to the government.

According to the deal, rebel fighters will evacuated from a Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus, while some 5,000 people in two northwestern villages besieged by insurgents will be allowed to move to regime-held areas.

At least 85 regime fighters and 74 IS militants have been killed in ten days of fighting in southern Damascus, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.

Yarmouk was once home to around 160,000 people, but today just a few hundred people remain, and is now IS' largest urban redoubt.

The militants have lost much of the territory they once controlled in both countries since they declared a cross-border caliphate there in 2014.

President Bashar Assad's regime set its sights on the south of the capital after reconquering a major rebel bastion east of Damascus earlier this month.

Eastern Ghouta fell after a blistering air and ground assault and Russia-backed evacuation deals that saw tens of thousands of people bussed out to northern Syria.

More than 350,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since Syria's war started in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.