Exclusive: Missile attack hits refugee camp in Syria

A missile has crashed near civilians in Syria’s Idlib province at a makeshift camp for displaced people from the nearby Hama province. 

Dramatic footage captured in the countryside area by Al Jazeera showed men, women and children desperately trying to find the nearest cover after the attack – images of which were also included in the film.

Al Jazeera’s Sinem Koseoglu, reporting from Antakya in southern Turkey, said the missile strike was the strongest violation yet of a peace accord agreed in Kazakhstan’s capital, Astana, recently between Russia, Turkey and Iran.

“Syrians are not surprised. Many of them believe that it is a kind of the diplomatic leverage game just before the Sochi meeting that is going to be held at the end of January,” she said.

Violence elsewhere

A push by the forces loyal to Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad aided by Russian air raids was causing a new wave of displacement from rebel-held territories.

About 120,000 people have fled their homes in Idlib province in recent weeks.

At least 179 people were killed in the besieged Damascus suburb of Eastern Ghouta in the past two weeks, according to activists.

Several people were in hospital after a bombing by government forces in Eastern Ghouta.

Aid workers on the scene said there were being treated for suffocation after a suspected chlorine gas attack.