ALEPPO // At least 16 civilians were killed and entire neighbourhoods devastated in rebel-held eastern Aleppo on Tuesday, when Syria’s ally Russia carried out the heaviest air strikes on the northern city in days.
The victims, which included four children, were killed in raids on the Bustan Al Qasr and Fardos neighbourhoods, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based opposition monitoring group.
Members of the White Helmets rescue force pulled two lifeless toddlers from a destroyed multi-storey residential building in Bustan Al Qasr and wrapped them in white sheets.
Footage by the Aleppo Media Centre activist group showed a toddler, blood smeared across her face, lying on a hospital bed. An older man near her is wailing in pain.
Backed by Russian air raids, government forces have been advancing street by street into rebel-held parts of Aleppo.
At least 290 people, mostly civilians, have been killed by government or Russian fire since the operation began last month.
Rebel forces also fired on western government-held districts of Aleppo on Tuesday, with state news agency Sana reporting four dead and 14 wounded in rebel bombing of Hamdaniyeh district.
Sana also reported an unidentified number of injuries in a mortar shell attack near the famous Umayyad mosque in the Old City of Damascus on Tuesday.
Elsewhere in Syria, state media said five children were among six people killed in rebel rocket fire on a primary school in the southern city of Daraa.
The Observatory also reported the deaths, along with 25 people wounded. It said the death toll could rise because a number of the wounded were in critical condition.
Rebel forces hold most of Daraa province, but the provincial capital is largely controlled by the government.
* Agence France Presse
