Around 50 people die every week in Raka from landmines and hidden bombs

About 50 people a week are injured or killed by landmines and hidden bombs planted by the Islamic State extremist group in the Syrian city of Raqqa before it was ousted by US-backed fighters in October, a UN official said. Senior UN humanitarian aid official Jan Egeland told reporters in Geneva that civilians are returning home too quickly, adding that "there are explosives all over civilian areas in Raqqa," the AP agency reported. He also said that the delivery of humanitarian aid to "areas under siege" in Syria has fallen to the lowest level since 2015, due to the impossibility of access for at least two months. Egeland said that since the end of December, there have been no medical evacuations from Eastern Ghouta, not far from Damascus.

Previously, on January 30, UN Assistant Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs Ursula Miller expressed concern for the safety of more than 300.000 civilians in the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, where the Turkish army launched an offensive and the UN received reports of civilian casualties.

Ursula Miller said that 15.000 people have been displaced in the enclave of Afrin and another 1.000 in Aleppo province, and that the UN estimates that 13,1 million people in Syria need protection and humanitarian aid, including 6,1 million displaced within Syria's borders.

She said that the UN office in Eastern Ghouta, not far from Damascus, recorded at least 81 civilian casualties during the first ten days of January, including 25 women and 30 children.