Dozens killed in Aleppo air strikes

Dozens die in eighth day of air strikes on Syrian northern city, as bombing in Homs kills five schoolchildren.

Syrian children search for their belongings at a school in Marea on the outskirts of Aleppo following airstrikes by government forces on December 22. Mohammed Al Khatieb / AFP

BEIRUT // Dozens of people were killed in an eighth day of air strikes on Syria’s northern city of Aleppo yesterday, a watchdog said, as a bombing in Homs killed five schoolchildren.

“Dozens of people were killed or wounded” in attacks that saw loyalist warplanes drop so-called barrel bombs near a market in Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The Aleppo Media Centre (AMC), a network of citizen journalists on the ground, also reported the attacks, adding that the barrel bomb attack “destroyed a bus, leaving no survivors”.

The bombing also destroyed “some 10 cars, as well as a residential building,” the AMC said.

The Observatory also reported a man and his son were killed in bombing on the Aleppo province village of Atareb, while a man, woman and child from one family were killed in Marea in the same province.

Footage distributed by Shahba Press, another network of citizen journalists, showed children in a bombed-out school in Marea, as one said “the warplane staged four raids here” while classes were on.

The Syrian Revolution General Commission, a network of grassroots activists, described “panic and mass flight to the countryside, despite the intense cold”.

In the central province of Homs, a car bombing yesterday killed eight people, six of them schoolchildren, the official SANA news agency reported.

“Terrorists blew up a car bomb near the primary school in the town of Omm Al Amd in the countryside outside Homs, killing eight people including six children, and wounding 34 others,” SANA said.

The Observatory reported a higher death toll of at least 12, including five children.

It said Omm Al Amd is home to a Shiite community, which is close to the Alawite sect of the president, Bashar Al Assad, unlike the majority Sunni Muslim rebels fighting to topple him.

* Agencies