The Syrian government's use of 'barrel bombs' has killed almost 2,000 people this year, in the opposition-held city of Aleppo alone, stated the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
The organisation, based in the UK, went on to add that the death toll included 283 women and 567 people under the age of 18.
See here for a BBC team's first hand account of the devastating effects of the air raids.
The crudely made 'barrel bombs' – wooden crates packed with hundreds of kilograms of shrapnel and explosives - have been widely condemned by human rights organisations, for their indiscriminate nature.
Earlier this year US Secretary of State John Kerry slammed the attacks as the “latest barbaric act of a regime that has committed organized, wholesale torture, used chemical weapons”.
See more in our earlier post:
US condemns ‘barbaric’ barrel bomb attacks (05 February 2014)
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