Beirut — At least 11 children were among 23 people killed Sunday in northern Syria as pro-government forces kept up their campaign against opposition areas in the country's north, while rebels shelled a government-held district in Aleppo city.
At least eight more people were killed in a suspected airstrike on a crossing point connecting Kurdish-held areas with rebel areas in northern Aleppo province, the Kurdish security force said.
The violence Sunday comes a day after government troops repelled a rebel offensive on western parts of Aleppo city launched in late October. State news agency SANA said the shelling of a western Aleppo district killed four people, including two women and a child.
Residents of eastern Aleppo said Sunday that for days they have received text messages urging them to leave in the next 24 hours. It was not possible to immediately verify the authenticity of the messages or who sent them. Government aircraft had previously dropped fliers on the eastern districts also urging residents to leave and make use of the Russian-declared passageways to evacuate the besieged district.
Three residents said they received the messages Friday and Sunday throughout the day, denouncing the opposition and threatening residents with an attack.
As of Sunday evening, Syrian Civil Defense's Ibrahim al-Haj said government artillery shelling in the Al-Salheen neighborhood of besieged eastern Aleppo killed a mother, her four children and her husband traveling in a car. Other shelling killed a child, a woman and three men in two different neighborhoods of the besieged territory, Al-Haj said.
While air strikes on eastern Aleppo city have subsided, aerial bombings of rebel-held western parts of Aleppo province continued. The Syrian Civil Defense, which operates in opposition-held areas, said one of its centers was bombed in rural Aleppo and put out of service in airstrikes on the town of Atareb. The strikes also killed three people, including two children. — AP
