Syrian Baby Pulled from Rubble in Dramatic Rescue as 20 Die in Barrel Bomb Attacks in Aleppo

At least 20 people have been killed in “barrel bomb” attacks dropped from government warplanes onto the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, as rescue teams scrambled to pull survivors and the dead from the rubble of shattered buildings and homes. Video from local media uploaded to YouTube on Friday showed the aftermath of barrel bomb – named for the explosives encasings, which are usually old oil drums or garbage cans – attacks on a main road in Aleppo the day before.

On the same day, dramatic footage surfaced of rescue workers pulling a two-month-old baby from the ruins of a building shattered by the bomb attack.The rescue operation took 16 hours, according to the video’s uploader.

Barrel bomb attacks in Syria’s biggest city have been a frequent occurrence during the three-year civil war, since forces controlled by President Bashar Assad launched the barrel bomb campaign against rebel and insurgent-held areas in 2012. Hundreds have died as a result of the indiscriminate dropping of barrel bombs, adding to the total death count of over 170,000 since the war began, according to monitoring and human rights groups. Among those killed, over 56,000 are civilians, including over 9,000 children, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

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