At least 15 people were reported killed on Sunday in shelling by regime and opposition forces in northwestern Syria, a monitoring group reported.
The northwest is the last major foothold of insurgents opposed to Bashar al-Assad.
According to Reuters, last year Damascus was poised to mount an offensive into the northwest, raising fears of a humanitarian catastrophe. The assault was postponed following a deal between Moscow and Ankara that included the creation of a “demilitarized zone”.
However, the agreement has recently come under strain:: the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 45 people had been killed in the last five days alone, most of them by regime shelling of rebel-held areas.
On Sunday, regime shelling killed seven people in rebel-held Nerab, the Observatory and the pro-opposition TV station Orient reported. Also, three more people were killed in rebel-held Saraqeb, civil defense rescue workers said on a Twitter feed.
The foreign ministers of France, Germany, Britain, Canada, the United States, Italy, and Japan on Saturday noted “with mounting concern the escalation in Syrian military activity in the de-escalation zone in Idlib over recent weeks”, according to a communique issued on Saturday after a Group of Seven meeting, Reuters reported.
