Syrian Airstrike Hits Marketplace Near Turkish Border, Killing More Than Two Dozen

Enlarge this image toggle caption Aaref Watad/AFP/Getty Images Aaref Watad/AFP/Getty Images

Warplanes struck a busy marketplace in a rebel-controlled area of northwestern Syria near the border with Turkey. Many children are reported to be among the dead.

As NPR's Ruth Sherlock reports,

"A video [was] filmed in the Syrian town of Harim seconds after the airstrike hit. A plume of smoke rises and children's crying fills the air. Residents say the payload hit a busy market, and rescuers count at least 36 people dead — 12 children among them. "Photos sent to NPR by a resident there show many burned corpses on stretchers. In one, three toddlers lie motionless and blooded on a blanket on the floor. "This town in the northern province of Idlib has been a destination for Syrians fleeing violence in other parts of the country. Rebels and their families today evacuated to this province from Eastern Ghouta near the capital Damascus."

The Associated Press reports that hundreds of Syrian rebels and their families departed Eastern Ghouta in dozens of white buses en route to Idlib. The evacuations have been part of a deal with the government in which the rebels surrender ground in order to be allowed to flee.

The number of casualties in Idlib varies in the preliminary reports of the incident.

In a tweet, the rescue organization White Helmets reports the number of dead at 35 civilians and more than 50 injured.

Another tweet shows rescuers pulling an unidentified man out of the bombed rubble. It reports that Russian aircraft targeted the town of Harim. That claim could not be independently confirmed.

Earlier this week, Syrian rebels fired rockets from eastern Ghouta into a government-controlled neighborhood of Damascus, killing 35 and wounding 20 more, the Associated Press reported citing Syrian state-run media.</s>An air raid on the village of Kafr Batikh in Syria's northwestern opposition-held Idlib province killed 20 people on Wednesday including 16 children, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Wednesday.

Some 15 of those killed in the strike, in the eastern part of Idlib province, were from one family said the Britain-based war monitor.

The head of the Idlib branch of the rescue team White Helmets, Mustapha al-Haj-Youssef, told dpa that "children were at the school when the first strike took place, they got scared and ran to hide in a nearby cave.

"The second strike hit the cave directly, killing all the children inside, as well as a man and a woman," he added.

Al-Haj-Youssef said the second strike was "probably by a Russian plane."

The Observatory could not identify the identity of the raiding plane.
A market in the town of Harem, Idlib province, is reportedly struck by Russian aircraft, killing 35 people including 12 children.