Air strikes on camp for displaced Syrians kill 28

AMMAN/BEIRUT: Air strikes on a camp housing Syrians uprooted by war killed 28 people near the Turkish border on Thursday, a monitoring group said, and fighting raged in parts of northern Syria despite a temporary deal to cease hostilities in the city of Aleppo.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included women and children and the death toll from the air
strikes, which hit a camp for internally displaced people near the town of Sarmada, was likely to rise.

Footage shared on social media showed rescue workers putting out fires which still burned among charred tent frames, pitched in a muddy field.

White smoke billowed from smouldering ashes, and a burned and bloodied torso could be seen in the footage.
"There were two aerial strikes that hit this makeshift camp for refugees who have taken refuge from fighting in southern
Aleppo and Palmyra," said Abu Ibrahim al-Sarmadi, an activist from the nearby town of Atmeh who spoke to people near the camp.

Nidal Abdul Qader, an opposition civilian aid official who lives about 1 km (half a mile) from the camp, said around 50
tents and a school had burned down.

The White House said the victims were innocent civilians who had fled their homes to escape violence. "These individuals are in the most desperate situation imaginable, and there is no justification for carrying out military action that´s targeting them," spokesman Josh Earnest said.

Sarmada lies about 30 km (20 miles) west of the city of Aleppo, where a cessation of hostilities brokered by Russia and
the United States had brought a measure of relief on Thursday.

But fighting continued nearby and President Bashar al-Assad said he still sought total victory over rebels. Syrian state media said the army would abide by a "regime of calm" in Aleppo that came into effect overnight for 48 hours, after two weeks of death and destruction.