More than 30,000 displaced in Syria as threat of military assault looms

More than 30,000 Syrians have fled their homes in the northwest city of Idlib, Reuters reports, in the wake of air and ground bombardments from the government and its allies.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said an assault on Idlib could send up to 800,000 people scrambling, per Reuters. Idlib is considered the last major stronghold for rebel forces opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. The Syrian government has been planning to take back Idlib and its surrounding areas, prompting fears of an attack from Assad and his Russian and Iranian allies, Reuters reports.

"We are very actively preparing for the possibility that civilians move in huge numbers in multiple directions," U.N. emergency coordinator Mark Lowcock said, per Haaretz. "There needs to be ways of dealing with this problem that don't turn the next few months in Idlib into the worst humanitarian catastrophe with the biggest loss of life of the 21st century."

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Read more about the crisis at Reuters.