Dozens of people were killed in a series of airstrikes on the city of Raqqa in northern Syria on Saturday, a monitoring group and activists said, as Damascus and Moscow waged attacks on areas controlled by Daesh.
\nA cessation of hostilities in Syria took effect three weeks ago, reducing violence but not halting the fighting as peace talks take place in Geneva. The deal does not include Al-Qaeda or Daesh militants, whose de facto capital in Syria is Raqqa.
\nRussia has been pulling out its attack aircraft after announcing a partial withdrawal from Syria, where its air campaign in support of Bashar Assad has turned fighting in his favor.
\nThe Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 39 people had been killed and dozens more wounded in the raids on Raqqa.
\nAn activist group with sources in Raqqa, called Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, said more than 40 had been killed, and that separate strikes hit areas in the north of Raqqa province.
\nThe Observatory said the dead included seven women and five children. It said it was not clear whether Syrian or Russian warplanes had conducted the airstrikes.
\nSeparately, Russian warplanes hit the Daesh-held historic city of Palmyra and its immediate vicinity with some 70 airstrikes, the Observatory said, killing at least 18 Daesh fighters.
\nGovernment forces and their allies are aiming to capture Palmyra, some 200 km southwest of Raqqa and also held by Daesh since May.
\nThe Observatory said 16 people were also killed in air strikes in Raqqa on Friday.
\nThe UNICEF said recently that one in three Syrian children have known nothing but a lifetime of war, as the country\u2019s conflict enters its sixth year this week.
\n\u201cEvery Syrian child under the age of five has known nothing but a lifetime shaped by war \u2014 that\u2019s an estimated 2.9 million children inside Syria and at least 811,000 in neighboring countries,\u201d the UN children\u2019s agency said.<\/p>\n
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