Russian-led strikes on rebel-held Idlib kill 18 Syrian civilians including six children -rescuers

Russian-led air strikes killed at least 18 people on Tuesday in northwest Syria where a major government offensive to clear out rebels has sent tens of thousands of people fleeing toward the border with Turkey, residents and rescuers said.

They said a family of eight including six children was killed in the rural village of Kfar Taal west of government-controlled Aleppo while another four civilians were killed in Maardabseh in the southeast of Idlib province.

"God take revenge on all tyrants. There is no one else left in my family," Abu Yasser, 71, a relative of the family wiped out in Kfar Taal, said in a voice recording sent to Reuters.

At least eight other civilians were killed in other strikes by Russian and regime warplanes on rural opposition areas that have been hit hard since the Russian-led military campaign, supplemented by Iranian militias, began in December.

It has left dozens of towns in ruins and knocked down hospitals sand schools, U.N. aid agencies say.

U.N. officials said last week a humanitarian crisis in the Idlib region of far northwestern Syria, the last significant rebel redoubt in Syria after almost nine years of civil war, had worsened with at least 350,000 civilians now on the run.

Another half a million people fled earlier bouts of fighting to the safety of camps near the border of Turkey, which backs some rebel factions in the northwest.

The latest offensive has brought Bashar al-Assad's military campaign closer to heavily populated central areas of Idlib, where nearly 3 million people are trapped, according to aid charities and U.N. agencies.

Turkey has pushed hard for a cease-fire in Idlib after the region endured months of battering by forces loyal to the Bashar al-Assad regime and its allies, sending about a million civilian refugees flocking towards the Turkish border.

Turkey and Russia agreed in September 2018 to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

Since then, more than 1,300 civilians there have been killed in attacks by the regime and Russian forces as the cease-fire continued to be violated.

Over one million Syrians have moved near the Turkish border due to intense attacks over the last year.