Date: Apr 8, 2019 Source: The Daily Star At least 13 dead as fighting in Idlib strains truce BEIRUT/AMMAN: Syrian government forces and rebels exchanged a barrage of rockets Sunday in the country’s northwest that killed at least 13 people and hit a government-run hospital, activists and government media reported. Russia’s top diplomat meanwhile called for the immediate closure of a desert camp near Syria’s border with Jordan housing tens of thousands of displaced people in dire conditions. The violence in Idlib strained a fragile months-old truce negotiated between Russia and Turkey that averted a government offensive on the province and surrounding areas, the last major rebel stronghold in the country. The region is home to some 3 million people, including many displaced from other battles in the 8-year-old civil war. The head of the local hospital in government-held Masyaf said insurgent shelling killed a rescue worker and four other people. Maher Younis told the state-run Ikhbariya TV that five children who were arriving at the hospital and two dentists were wounded. The network aired footage of broken glass at the hospital entry. One of the wounded told Ikhbariya from her hospital bed that the missile landed when she and her mother were arriving to do some medical tests. “We only felt a big bang. I was wounded in my hand and my mom in her leg,” she said, without giving her name. Hospitals and civilian infrastructure have frequently come under fire over the course of the war, and rights groups say government forces have targeted medical facilities on several occasions. The government denies targeting such facilities, which it says the rebels use for military purposes. The rebels do not have precision missiles and mainly rely on homemade or outdated arms. The insurgents’ fire came amid heightened tensions following days of government fire on villages and towns on the edge of the enclave. Opposition-allied first responders known as the White Helmets said government shelling killed at least eight people, including one child, in the towns of Saraqeb and Neirab in eastern Idlib. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the death toll at nine. The activist-run Shaam news agency said the shelling in Saraqeb hit civilians who were visiting a local government office. Speaking in Amman, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov called for the Rukban camp to be closed “as soon as possible” and slammed a “de facto occupation” by U.S. forces at a nearby garrison. Nearly 50,000 Syrians live at the camp near Al-Tanf base, used by the U.S.-led coalition fighting Daesh (ISIS). “According to U.N. observers who visited the camp, most of the displaced people there want to return home, including to territories controlled by the Syrian government,” Lavrov said. “It is necessary to stop the efforts preventing their freedom. I can say this because they do not feel free in this camp.” The Syrian government and key backer Russia said in February they had opened corridors out of the camp, calling on residents to leave. Two weeks later, the U.N. said no civilians were believed to have left, for fears over their safety. Conditions inside the settlement are dire, with many surviving on just one simple meal a day, often bread and olive oil or yoghurt, one resident said. Speaking alongside his Jordanian counterpart Ayman Safadi, Lavrov said Moscow was ready to discuss “all steps needed” to help people leave Rukban. “The most simple and effective solution would be to end the American occupation,” he said, adding that the U.S. had “unilaterally announced some sort of security zone in the area” and had “refused to discuss closing the camp.” “They argued that humanitarian convoys should be sent to the camp from government areas,” he said. “But that only means that they want to make this situation permanent.” Safadi called Sunday for a meeting between American, Russian and Jordanian officials to solve the “major humanitarian issue” of Rukban.