DAMASCUS, 04 July (TON): A war monitor said and a rescue group said “at least eight civilians, including six children, were killed in shelling and artillery fire by Russian-backed Syrian government forces in Idlib.

The UK-based Syria Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said “the attacks also wounded 16 people in several locations of the Jabal al-Zawiya area in the south of the stronghold.”

It said “it killed five members of the same family in the village of Iblin, two children in Balyun village and another child in Balshun village.”

Syria’s Civil Defence, a volunteer search and rescue group also known as the White Helmets and operating in rebel-held parts of Syria, confirmed the deaths.

The group said on twitter “a horrific massacre committed by Russia & regime forces this morning in Idlib countryside, where 8 civilians were killed.”

In Iblin, the bodies of the family arrive at a health dispensary, wrapped in woollen and cotton blankets.

Nurses and other people prepared the bodies for burial, cleaning the bloodied corpse of a young boy before swaddling it in gauze, he said.