At least 49 civilians, including six children, were killed on Monday in Syrian government air strikes on a town in Idlib province in the country's north-west, a monitoring group said. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the raids hit a square in the town of Al-Janudiyah, in the west of the province, which is now almost completely controlled by opposition forces.
"It's a public square, and a lot of people gather there because there are shops," said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman. He told AFP that people displaced from other areas of Idlib province had also sought refuge in Al-Janudiyah. Regime military aircraft fired missiles on the town, he said. Video uploaded on the YouTube website by activists showed absolute chaos in the aftermath of the strikes, with the air thick with grey smoke and dust and the square scattered with the rubble of buildings and the body parts of victims.