By Halit Suleyman

ALEPPO, Syria

A Russian airstrike on a refugee camp in Syria’s northwestern Aleppo province left three people dead and another 15 injured, local civil defense sources said Thursday.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency on condition of anonymity due to fears of reprisal, the sources said that a Russian warplane had struck a refugee camp near Aleppo’s Atarib district with cluster bombs.

Ahmed Hassan Obeid, an activist based in Atarib, said the strike forced hundreds of families to flee the camp in search of safety.

Obeid added that civil defense vehicles rushing to the stricken area had been targeted by Russian warplanes, damaging an ambulance.

Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests -- which had erupted as part of the "Arab Spring" uprisings -- with unexpected ferocity.

Since then, more than a quarter of a million people have been killed and more than 10 million displaced across the war-battered country, according to UN figures.

However, the Syrian Center for Policy Research, an NGO formerly based in Damascus, has put the total death toll from conflict at more than 470,000.