In Syria, 33 Turkish soldiers were killed in an airstrike by Russia-backed Syrian forces in rebel-held Idlib in a major escalation on Thursday. Turkey has vowed to respond in kind, as U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres calls for an immediate ceasefire, saying “the risk of even greater escalation grows by the hour.” Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reportedly spoke by phone on Friday to discuss the crisis, as NATO urged rapid deescalation. The all-out offensive by the Syrian government is the single largest displacement in a nine-year war that has forced 13 million to flee and left hundreds of thousands dead. Since December alone, some 900,000 people, at least half of them children, have been displaced from northwestern Syria. As the humanitarian catastrophe deepens, aid workers are describing scenes of chaos and devastation on the ground, with families scrambling for shelter as temperatures fall below freezing. We speak with Avril Benoît, the executive director of MSF USA, or Doctors Without Borders USA.

Fonte: Catastrophic Humanitarian Crisis in Idlib as Syrian Troops Advance & Children Freeze to Death | Democracy Now!