Health workers pulled little lifeless bodies out from under mounds of rubble after airstrikes reportedly hit and killed 25 children in the eastern part of the Syrian province of Deir Ezzor, a U.N. agency said.
Three air attacks targeted heavily crowded areas, including a mosque during prayer time on Saturday, in the town of al-Quriyah, UNICEF said in a statement.
Deir Ezzor city, the provincial capital, has been a hotbed of conflict since ISIS militants captured the northern suburbs in January. The city has been a critical junction for ISIS, with roads east and south toward Iraq and west to areas it controls in Homs province, including Palmyra.
It is also surrounded by some of ISIS’ most valuable oilfields, which have been intensively targeted by both U.S. and Russian airpower in recent months.
Gruesome video
Meanwhile, The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a London-based organization which monitors the war in Syria, claims to have received a copy of a new video released by ISIS, depicting the gruesome execution of five media activists from Deir Ezzor.
The militant group claims the executions were carried out on charges of “acting against the Islamic state, communicating with outside parties and receiving funds, and other charges.”
While the onslaught of violence is being met with resistance, more than 250,000 people have been killed, 1 million injured and millions of refugees and internally displaced people, since the country’s civil strife began in 2011, according to the United Nations.
The critical concern for aid workers is that attacks on children in Syria “are becoming commonplace with callous disregard for the lives of children,” UNICEF said.