At least seven people drowned and 20 were injured, most of them children, when a school A bus veered off the road and fell into a river in northwestern Syria, emergency services said, the Associated Press reported, citing BTA.
The incident took place near the town of Darkush, west of the city of Idlib, where the bus fell into the Orontes River, the local civil defense organization, also known as the “White Helmets”, said in a statement.
Rescue teams spent about six hours searching for survivors on the rocks and in the river, the release said.
It was not immediately clear what caused the bus to go off the road. Photos from the scene showed a steep cliff overlooking the river bed.
Ahmad Ghandour, a doctor at the hospital in Darkush, which received the injured, said the students and teachers on the bus were from an orphanage school.
This is yet another tragedy in the region, which has already been hit hard by the ongoing Syrian civil war and the devastating 7.8 magnitude earthquake that struck Turkey and northern Syria last year.