At least 18 civilians have been killed in Syria’s southern province of Deraa after Russian-backed government forces targeted residential buildings with “surface to surface missiles”, the Syrian Civil Defence said.
The civil defence, also known as the White Helmets – a volunteer search and rescue group operating in rebel-held parts of Syria – said several others were injured in the bombardment on Thursday in the town of Alyadouda.“The total number of martyrs up until Thursday … is 18,” Mounir Mustafa, a spokesman for the civil defence in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, told Al Jazeera.
Mustafa said the civil defence – which no longer operates in Deraa – has been in touch with activists on the ground who have provided the group with the latest death toll.
Thousands of civilians are on the “verge of a humanitarian catastrophe”, the White Helmets said in a statement late on Thursday, adding that “indiscriminate bombing” by Russian-backed government forces has resulted in the killing of “children and innocent civilians”.
The latest round of fighting which began on Monday between government forces and rebels in the area has been described by a United Kingdom-based war monitor as the heaviest clashes since most of the Deraa province came back under government control in 2018.
Fighting started on Monday when government forces fired artillery shells towards Deraa al-Balad – a southern district of Deraa city which is among the areas controlled by former opposition forces – in tandem with a ground offensive, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
The opposition, residents, and the army said on Thursday the rebels had launched a spate of mortar attacks on Syrian army checkpoints in Deraa.
Several attacks on army outposts near the Damascus-Deraa highway leading to the border crossing of Nassib with Jordan also disrupted passenger and commercial traffic at the main gateway for goods from Lebanon and Syria to the Gulf.
Multiple army checkpoints around key towns and villages from the town of Nawa north of the province to Muzarib near the border with Jordan were also reportedly seized.
