Syrian arms depot in a rebel-held town has exploded on Sunday and the debris of the munition has killed at least 39 civilians, among them, were children. The cause of the explosion was not immediately known, BBC said.
The powerful explosion happened in the town of Sarmada on the north of Syria. The weapons depot was situated not so far from the Turkish border and the provincial capital Idlib city. Sunday’s tragic incident killed at least 39 civilians including a dozen children, while most of those in the building are believed to have belonged to the families of jihadist fighters who have taken refuge in Idlib after being driven out of other areas of Syria.
According to the Syrian authorities, the cause of the explosion was not immediately known. According to the civil defence source, women and children were among the dead. But rescue workers had pulled out “five people who were still alive”, the source said.
Last week, Bashar Al-Assad’s regime forces have ramped up their deadly bombardment of southern Idlib and sent reinforcements to nearby areas they control. Death of 12 civilians was a result of the bombardment of the towns of Khan Sheikhun and Al-Tah in the rebel-held Idlib province where IS jihadist group also has sleeper cells.
Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group, said a previous death toll of 12 increased after more bodies were retrieved from the rubble.
But the cause of the blast was “not yet clear”, Mr Abdel Rahman added. He said most of those killed were family members of fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an alliance led by jihadists from Syria’s former Al-Qaeda affiliate, who had been displaced to the area from the central province of Homs.
Last week, the first lady of Syria said she started the breast cancer treatment in the military hospital in Damascus. In her tweet, Asma Al-Assad thanked people for their support and wishes of the soon recovery.
