In the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, a residential structure collapsed on Sunday, killing thirteen people.
According to state media, rescuers are still looking for victims who may be buried beneath the debris.
According to government officials cited by state media, a five-story building in the Sheikh Maksoud neighbourhood of Syria’s second-largest city collapsed due to water leaks that undermined its base.
It is one of many structures that have collapsed recently in Aleppo, which took the brunt of intensive aerial bombing by Russia and Syria until rebels were defeated six years ago.
According to residents, a large number of internally displaced Syrians have been relocated over the more than ten-year battle to destroyed structures since there hasn’t been a systematic rehabilitation of residential districts and because state services are still scarce.
The dead were all reportedly displaced residents of the northern Afrin district, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, located in Britain.
When citing a statement from the interior ministry, the state news agency SANA revised its initial dead toll of 10 to 13 and predicted further increases.
A war monitor stated they were all Syrians who had been displaced over the more than ten years of warfare in the nation, while a Kurdish news agency reported that five children were among the deceased.
The interior ministry reported that only one person had been pulled from the wreckage and that rescue and search operations were ongoing.
Since it began in 2011, Syria’s conflict has claimed the lives of around 500,000 people, and half of its pre-war population has been displaced.
Many of the displaced people were forced to move into weakly constructed buildings, which frequently collapse.
In the Ferdaws area of Aleppo, a building collapse in September of last year claimed the lives of 10 individuals, three of them were children.
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