About 5,000 civilians in the north-west of Syria have been forced to flee their homes after more government shelling targeting the contested area, a local aid agency said.

At least 31 people have died since the beginning of June, victims of Bashar al-Assad’s forces hitting civilian buildings in southern Idlib province. The buildings included a hospital, displacement camp school, and a White Helmets headquarters. The number of dead includes three children and a civil defence worker who was killed in an attack on the town of Qastoun on Saturday.

“We were getting ready to start our morning shift when our centre was targeted with three highly explosive missiles. I joined the White Helmets [a civil defence paramedic group] in 2014, and throughout those years I’ve never witnessed such destructive missiles. Our colleague Dahham al-Hussein was killed, and five of our volunteers were injured, including Dahham’s brother Ahmad,” said Samer Nassar, head of the group’s Qastoun centre. “The centre was completely destroyed and we lost a lot of equipment that we use to save lives and pull people from under rubble.”

The violence over the last three weeks is the latest in violation of a ceasefire deal brokered by Turkey and Russia in March 2020, saving the area from a brutal regime offensive that forced one million people to flee.

“People are worried enough to have to leave their homes again … the