Residents in Syria’s embattled Idlib hold anti-UN protest

Hundreds of people in Syria’s embattled North-East province of Idlib on Friday took to the streets to protest against the UN Security Council’s failure to adopt a ceasefire resolution.

Idlib, Syria’s last key rebel stronghold, had since in April, been the target of a military government campaign supported by allied Russia.

The 15-member Security Council had earlier voted on two rival drafts: one humanitarian-focused resolution proposed by Germany, Belgium and Kuwait and backed by the U.S; the other a text by Russia and China.

Permanent Security Council members Russia and China vetoed the first draft resolution because it did not include language that would exempt from the truce military offensives against what they called terrorists.

However, the residents of Idlib on Friday expressed anger at the UN deadlock.

Images posted online showed placards at the protest thus, your silence is killing our people daily.

Another placard read, your failure to adopt a resolution was putting the lives of 3 million people at stake.

A senior UN official told the Security Council earlier that an estimated 400,000 people had fled their homes in Syria’s North-West in the last four months.

Ahmed Ramadan, a senior Syrian opposition, told dpa that the Russian veto did not come as a surprise.

“It proves that the regime of Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, wants to continue with their killer machine against the people of Syria,“Ramadan said.

In recent months, al-Assad’s forces, supported by Russian air power, had made military and territorial gains against the opposition.