Syrian state media says 7 children killed by explosive device in southern Daraa province

DAMASCUS, Syria — Seven children were killed in southern Syria’s Daraa province when an “explosive device” detonated, state media reports.

“Seven children” were killed “and two other people were injured, one of them a woman, when an explosive device planted by terrorists” went off in the city of Sanamayn, state news agency SANA reports, quoting a police source.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor gives a different toll, saying that “eight children of different ages were killed and another was wounded” in the blast.

The Britain-based monitor says militias were accused of planting the device in order to target an unidentified person in the area.

Daraa was the cradle of the 2011 uprising against President Bashar al-Assad’s rule but it was returned to government control in 2018 under a ceasefire deal backed by Russia.

The province has since been plagued by killings, clashes and dire living conditions.

Syria’s war, which escalated into a deadly conflict that pulled in jihadists and foreign armies, has killed more than 507,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.