DARKUSH, Syria: At least six people died and more than 20 were injured, most of them children, when a school bus went off the road into a river in northwest Syria on Thursday, emergency responders said.
The bus carrying dozens of children left the road near the city of Darkush, west of Idlib, and plunged into the Orontes River, a local civil defense organization also known as the White Helmets said in a statement.
Rescue teams were searching for survivors in the cliffside and in the river, it said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the bus to go off the road. Images from the scene showed a steep crag overlooking the riverbed where searchers were scrambling over boulders.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, said the children had been attending a Qur’an memorization institute, of which there are many in northwest Syria.
It was the latest tragedy to affect an area that has already been hit hard by Syria’s ongoing civil war and by a devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that hit Turkiye and northern Syria last year.
Most of most of the 5.1 million people living in opposition-held northwest Syria have been internally displaced, sometimes more than once, in the country’s civil war, now in its 14th year, and rely on aid to survive.
At least 6 people die after school bus plunges into a river in northwest Syria
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At least 6 people die after school bus plunges into a river in northwest Syria
- The bus carrying dozens of children left the road near the city of Darkush and plunged into the Orontes River, say White Helmets
Syrian authorities arrest 3 suspects linked to Coastal Shield Brigade over ‘terrorist threats’
- They are accused of planning attacks on internal security sites and the army in Latakia governorate
LONDON: Syrian authorities arrested the alleged leaders of a criminal group affiliated with militant organization the Coastal Shield Brigade in the city of Latakia on Monday.
Jaafar Ali Alia (also known as Lt. Abbas), Rashid Ghiath Alia and Ali Abdul Sattar Khalilo are accused by the Ministry of Interior of targeting internal security sites and the army in Latakia governorate.
“The cell’s members appeared in video clips threatening to carry out terrorist attacks against sites belonging to the Ministries of Interior and Defense,” the Interior Ministry said.
Authorities allege that Miqdad Fatiha, a former Syrian Republican Guard commander and head of the Coastal Shield Brigade, provided the cell with financial and logistical support.
Fatiha has been on the run since the collapse of the Assad regime in December 2024. Last month, the UK imposed sanctions on him and several other former Assad regime officials over their involvement in violence in Syrian coastal towns that resulted the deaths of hundreds of people in March 2025.
On Sunday, authorities arrested Haider Ali Othman in Al-Qardaha, the hometown of the Assad clan, on charges of inciting violence and chaos during protests last month in Latakia.
