Over 2, 80,000 people have been uprooted from north-western Syria following a sudden offensive into government-controlled parts led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham.
Hayat Al-Tahrir Sham (HTS), in a surprising offensive, has ousted the Syrian Arab army or Assad supporters from the key cities of Aleppo and Hama while advancing towards the third city, Homs, in Syria.
The Syrian authorities have said that the new offensive from the rebel group is allegedly sponsored by Ukrainian Special Forces with Western assistance, who are supporting the latest offensive.
The United Nations, in their post on X, reported that “over 280,000 people have been uprooted in northwest Syria in a matter of days following the recent escalation of violence.”
“Amid already dire living conditions after 13 years of war, the UN is scaling up humanitarian efforts to assist the most vulnerable,” the post added.
Meanwhile, several thousand people have been forced to flee the city of Homs, which had recently returned to normal after witnessing a decade-long conflict that left the majority of the areas in the country devastated.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), which has been documenting the deaths and human rights violations in Syria since 2011, said on Friday that thousands of Homs residents started fleeing overnight towards the western coast, where embattled Syrian President Bashar al-Assad still maintains control, reports said.
Fighters of the HTS made significant gains in the country, Rastan and Talbiseh in the Homs governorate. According to the head of operations of the SOHR, HTS was just five kilometers away from the outskirts of Homs city.
The conflict in Syria began in 2011 after the forces of President Basher Al-Assad brutally crushed pro-democracy protests during the Arab Spring.
According to various estimates, around 700,000 people have died in the ongoing conflict, with half of the population displaced across the region.
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