Russian air strikes on a rural swath of northwest Syria on Friday killed at least seven people including four children, a war monitoring group and rescuers said, following months of relative calm in the area.
Four strikes by aircraft identified as Russian by ground spotters hit the countryside in Idlib, the last opposition-held zone in war-torn Syria, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors such events in the war as operations and casualties.
The four children killed had been siblings, the Britain-based group said.
The White Helmets rescue group gave the same figures and said another dozen people, among them eight children, had been wounded in the strikes.
Russia has been carrying out air strikes in Syria since 2015, helping its ally President Bashar al-Assad reclaim territory from opposition and extremist groups.
The strikes had become increasingly rare in recent months, the war monitoring group said.
The northwestern province of Idlib is under the control of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an al-Qaeda-linked group, while northern Aleppo province is under the control of Turkish-backed opposition groups.
More than 90% of the population in that area live in extreme poverty, relying on humanitarian aid to survive.
The Syrian government in Damascus, alongside key ally Russia, frequently launch airstrikes in the area.
Turkey has warned it intends to launch a new military operation targeting the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces in northwestern Syria. Turkey says the Kurdish-led forces pose a security threat and deem them a terrorist group.
