Syrian regime artillery fire killed at least five civilians including two children in Idlib, a Britain-based war monitor said Sunday.
The shelling took place in the village of Ehsim late Saturday, in the south of Idlib region, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.
A family member told AFP that visitors had gathered to congratulate a male relative on getting married when the shelling hit their home.
Earlier in the day, rockets fired by pro-government forces killed six people in the village of Sarja, including three children and a rescue worker, meaning at least 11 were killed in total in Idlib on Saturday.
The shelling at Ehsim came hours after President Bashar al-Assad took the oath of office for a fourth term, pledging to "liberate" areas still beyond government control.
The deaths are the latest violations of a ceasefire deal agreed by Turkey and Russia in March 2020.
An AFP photographer in Ehsim saw rescue workers under floodlights cut through a collapsed ceiling to retrieve the body of a woman.
Bundling her body up in a blanket, they then gently lowered it down a ladder and carried it into an ambulance.
Bordering Turkey, the northwestern Idlib region is home to around three million people, more than half displaced by fighting in other parts of war-torn Syria. Many rely on humanitarian aid to survive.
Syria's war has killed around half a million people and forced millions more to flee their homes since starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of anti-government protests.
In a separate development, Turkey on Saturday rejected a joint statement issued by several UN agencies, which accused Ankara of cutting off the water supply provided by the Allouk station to Syria's northeast areas.
"The joint statement released on 15 July 2021 by the Resident Coordinator and Humanitarian Coordinator for Syria, Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis and UNICEF Regional Director for the Middle East and North Africa contains factual mistakes as well as incomplete and misleading information,” said the Turkish Foreign Ministry.
The Ministry’s spokesperson, Ambassador Tanju Bilgic, explained that the Allouk Water Station is situated near the town of Ras al-Ain, a part of an area held by the Syrian opposition, and the only source of power for the station as well as the whole region of Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain is in the south.
“The terrorist organization PKK/PYD and the regime deliberately obstruct the electricity to the Station and the region. These power cuts disable the functions of the Station to provide water and aggravate the humanitarian conditions in the region,” he added.
Bilgic said there is no electrical power in Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain since 18 April 2021 and at the Allouk Water Station since 26 June 2021, adding that the regime continues to arbitrarily prevent potable and irrigation water supply from reaching Al-Bab.
