ALEPPO, Syria
At least 40 people were killed on Thursday as Syria regime helicopters dropped more than 10 barrel bombs on opposition-controlled Masakin Hananu area in the northern province of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Revolution General Commission (SRGC).
SRGC added that 20 others were wounded - some of them are in critical condition - in the attack, which demolished and damaged several homes, and people tried by limited means to pull out dead and injured bodies from underneath the debris.
Local Coordination Committees of Syria (LCC) said that a Syria army helicopter pounded the Daraya area of Damascus with barrel bombs, with reports of casualties and tens of houses destroyed.
The use of barrel bombs by the Syria regime has killed 4,000 people, 97 percent of whom were civilians, according to Monday's most up-to-date statistics in a report by the Syria Network for Human Rights (SNHR), a London-based human rights watchdog which tracks civilian and dissident casualties.
A barrel bomb is an improvised explosive device containing Trinitrotoluene (TNT), which is a non-precise and highly-explosive chemical, as well as pieces of sharp metal and concrete to enhance its destructive power. Each barrel weighs around half a ton and is deadly in an area of 250 square meters.
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