Syrian civilians and a rescue worker evacuate children in the Maadi district of eastern Aleppo after regime aircrafts reportedly dropped explosive-packed barrel bombs on August 27, 2016. At least 15 civilians were reported killed when two bombs fell several minutes apart, near a tent where people were receiving condolences for those killed this week. / AFP PHOTO / AMEER ALHALBI

In the besieged parts of the city, children face dire food and medicine shortages, besides air strikes

They cannot play, sleep or attend school. Increasingly, they cannot eat. Injury or illness could be fatal. Many just huddle with their parents in windowless underground shelters — which offer no protection from the powerful bombs that have turned east Aleppo into a kill zone.

Among the roughly 250,000 people trapped in the insurgent redoubt of the divided northern Syrian city are 100,000 children, the most vulnerable victims of intensified bombings by Syrian forces and their Russian allies.

The routine in east Aleppo, where shellshocked children are exhumed from rubble and left writhing in bloody clothes on dirty hospital gurneys, is a confluence of Syria’s young population, failed diplomacy and the reality of a war that appears to be worsening after more than five years.

“They’re trapped, and they have no way of escaping,” said Alun McDonald, a spokesman for the Middle East operations of Save the Children, the international charity. “That’s one reason we’re seeing such big numbers of child casualties.”

The people living in besieged rebel-held areas of Aleppo have shown a high level of resilience, moving schools and hospitals underground for protection. So too, life has continued on the government-held western side of the city, where, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, 49 children were killed by rebel mortar fire in July alone.

But lately on the eastern side, Mr. McDonald said, “the bombing has become so intense that even underground shelters aren’t safe any more.” Save the Children has said that at several hospitals and ambulance centres it supports in eastern Aleppo, half of the casualties have been children since the bombings escalated after the collapse of a short-lived cease-fire last week.

Hanaa Singer, the UNICEF representative in Syria, said precise numbers of child casualties in east Aleppo had yet to be determined. Nonetheless, she said by telephone from Damascus, “it’s definitely the worst we have seen for children.” Just a few weeks ago, Ms. Singer said, UNICEF planned to publicise how east Aleppo children were enrolled to go back to school, with photos of students walking to class past piles of rubble. That plan was scrapped. “Children are not going to school now,” she said.

Children in the besieged parts of Aleppo also face dire food and medicine shortages. Surgery and blood transfusions required for treating bomb wounds are, by many accounts, practically impossible now. Medical workers have left children to die on hospital floors for lack of supplies. The New York Times News Service </s> A video from besieged eastern Aleppo has shown the moment a young girl, trapped beneath rubble following a deadly bomb attack, is rescued by the Syria Civil Defence, better known as the white helmets.

The footage shows the emergency workers breaking through a wall with a drill to access part of the five floor building blown to smithereens by pro-Assad bombs. At first nothing can be seen of the young girl, identified as Ghazal Qasim, covered in dust and trapped under huge pieces of rubble.

As White Helmets start removing the pieces of debris from around Ghazal she can be heard screaming violently. Her reaction when she is removed on an orange stretcher and touched on the leg would seem to imply it was broken.

As she is torn from the rubble, the pink tracksuit she was wearing at the time of the bombing can just be seen through the thick dust. With her eyes closed and her mouth slightly open Ghazal only moves to scream when she is knocked.

In images which have been uncomfortably familiar, as Ghazal is brought into the light of the outside world like Omran Daqneesh whose pictures shocked the world, she is as grey as the bombed-out buildings that surround her.

Activists have claimed in unconfirmed media reports that Ghazal was the sole survivor of the wreckage. The video of her rescue from the building lasts just under five minutes but the white helmets have said they were digging for four hours to rescue her.

A local activist alleged that bunker buster bombs were used in the attack to destroy buildings in Aleppo's al-Shaar neighbourhood on Tuesday 27 September.

1 of 7

The video emerges as the international community and human rights groups condemn unprecedented violence in eastern Aleppo where the Syrian government and its Russian and Iranian backers appear to be pursuing an end game. In the aftermath of a seven-day-long ceasefire across Syria the Assad regime vowed that it would retake all territory lost over the course of the country's six-year civil war.

The UN's children's charity UNICEF has called the effect of the war in Aleppo on children as the worst seen since the conflict began. At least 96 children have been killed and 223 have been injured in Eastern Aleppo since Friday, UNICEF said.

"The children of Aleppo are trapped in a living nightmare," said UNICEF Deputy Executive Director Justin Forsyth said in a statement. "There are no words left to describe the suffering they are experiencing."

The health system in Eastern Aleppo is crumbling with some 30 doctors left, hardly any equipment or emergency medicine to treat the injured, and an ever-increasing number of trauma cases. </s> BEIRUT (AP) — The 6-year-old girl was found trapped under the rubble of her home, destroyed by an airstrike in Syria’s rebel-held city of Aleppo. “Dust!” she wailed as rescue workers pried away the stones and debris on top of her, finally freeing her and placing her on a stretcher as she screamed for her father.

“Forget the dust. I’ll wash your face and give you water. Come on, sweetheart,” one rescuer said.

Bruised and battered but alive, Ghazl Qassem was among the lucky survivors of the attack earlier this week. Four days later, rescue workers were still digging Friday through the rubble of the apartment building after pulling out the bodies of 20 people, including nine children, most from Ghazl’s family. They were searching for at least three others believed inside.

At least 96 children are among the 320 people killed in Aleppo since a cease-fire collapsed on Sept. 19, according to UNICEF, as Syrian and Russian warplanes barrage the city’s eastern opposition neighborhoods, trying to crush more than five years of resistance there. Almost a third of the 840 people wounded over the same period are children, according to the World Health Organization.

“Aleppo is one of the most dangerous places in the world, and in the last week it has become perhaps the most dangerous place in the world for children.” Juliette Touma, regional chief of communications for the U.N children’s agency told The Associated Press.

Nearly 300,000 people — including 100,000 children — are trapped in Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern districts, a pocket of resistance some eight miles long and three miles wide that civil defense workers say has been hit by 1,900 bombs in the past week. The campaign has wreaked destruction on hospitals, clinics, residential buildings, water stations and electric generators.

Parents desperately struggling to keep their families safe fear the threat of an imminent ground offensive. They hold little hope for the future, with no regular schooling and little access to nutritious food. Images of wounded and screaming children, covered in dust or being pulled out of rubble, have become a daily reality in Aleppo.

“We are totally resigned to God’s will,” said Khaled Sakka, a father of 10 children, all under the age of 14. He, his three wives and the children all sleep in one room in the middle of the house, the only safety measure they have against the nightly airstrikes.

“The bombs are bringing down five-story buildings. They are even reaching bunkers,” he said.

Wounded children are often left untreated, sometimes to die, in Aleppo’s overwhelmed hospitals. Only 30 doctors remain in opposition-held neighborhoods: One physician for every 10,000 people, compared to a peacetime standard of one for every 1,000, Touma said.

“It is very difficult to know how many (children) are traumatized, but one would imagine every single one is impacted by the horrors, especially with the intensification of the violence in the past week,” she said.

So-called bunker-busting bombs, designed to target underground structures, have been widely used, possibly to crush tunnels or bunkers used as refuge by the thousands of rebel fighters defending the districts.

But the powerful bombs also threaten the underground shelters where civilians take refuge and where children go to school. For the past several years, most classes have been held in basements because of the constant fighting and threat of airstrikes.

“The use of bunker-busting bombs means there is literally nowhere we can keep children safe, ” said Nick Finney of Save the Children, which runs 12 schools in eastern Aleppo, eight of them held underground. “We’re now more likely to see children being pulled from the rubble or treated on the floor of a hospital than sitting at a school desk.”

When schools opened across the country this month, they remained closed in eastern Aleppo because of the danger, said Brita Haj, the head of the local council in the rebel-held part of the city.

Medics say the death toll among children and other residents may be far higher than reported, since some families bury their dead without taking them to hospitals or morgues, and many victims remain buried in the rubble.

Dr. Hatem, a pediatrician, said women and children make up a large percentage of the victims because they are the ones who stay at home. As one of two pediatricians in besieged Aleppo, Hatem said he had an enormous load even before the last week’s intensification of fighting, treating 80 to 120 children a day.

Now he’s seeing a spike in wounded children in intensive care, from four or five a month to four or five a day. There is also a rise in aggressive behavior among children and various signs of trauma such as bed-wetting or losing the ability to walk or talk, said Hatem, who gave only his last name out of security fears.

Ghazl Qassem was at home with her four siblings, her pregnant mother, cousins and grandmother when the bomb struck Tuesday around midday. Their apartment building is adjacent to a hospital in a neighborhood with a number of specialized clinics; hospitals and clinics have been frequent targets in the recent campaign.

The children’s father, Hussein, was not home at the time.

Since Tuesday’s attack he has not moved from the rubble as the bodies of his family members have been pulled out one after the other, including his wife and three other children, said a neighbor, Tamim Selim.

Ghazl is staying with an aunt. “She is having nightmares. She is still in shock. She sleeps and wakes up, reaches for her mother’s phone and watches photos there and cries,” Selim said.

Abdul-Majid Malah, a father of three who lives nearby, rushed to the scene after the bomb.

“I only saw the dust. When it settled, the building was all on the ground. It was like dominos,” he said.

His children, ages 2, 3 and 4, rush into his arms every time they hear a bomb, he said. Then a minute later, they go back to playing.

There is no adequate underground shelter in his building for Malah, his pregnant wife and children to take refuge.

“We can only pray that the bombs don’t hit us at home,” he said, adding that he stays up all night tracking where the missiles are hitting. “I won’t be able to change fate, but I am too stressed out to fall asleep.”

The park next to their house was bombed last month, so the children have not been allowed to venture outside. On Friday, incendiary bombs hit outside their building, but no one was hurt.

“We only survive on hope,” he said. </s> BEIRUT — The 6-year-old girl was found trapped under the rubble of her home, destroyed by an airstrike in Syria’s rebel-held city of Aleppo. “Dust!” she wailed as rescue workers pried away the stones and debris on top of her, finally freeing her and placing her on a stretcher as she screamed for her father.

“Forget the dust. I’ll wash your face and give you water. Come on, sweetheart,” one rescuer said.

Bruised and battered but alive, Ghazl Qassem was among the lucky survivors of the attack earlier this week. Four days later, rescue workers were still digging Friday through the rubble of the apartment building after pulling out the bodies of 20 people, including nine children, most from Ghazl’s family. They were searching for at least three others believed inside.

At least 96 children are among the 320 people killed in Aleppo since a cease-fire collapsed on Sept. 19, according to UNICEF, as Syrian and Russian warplanes barrage the city’s eastern opposition neighborhoods, trying to crush more than five years of resistance there. Almost a third of the 840 people wounded over the same period are children, according to the World Health Organization.

“Aleppo is one of the most dangerous places in the world, and in the last week it has become perhaps the most dangerous place in the world for children.” Juliette Touma, regional chief of communications for the U.N children’s agency told The Associated Press.

Nearly 300,000 people — including 100,000 children — are trapped in Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern districts, a pocket of resistance some eight miles long and three miles wide that civil defense workers say has been hit by 1,900 bombs in the past week. The campaign has wreaked destruction on hospitals, clinics, residential buildings, water stations and electric generators.

Parents desperately struggling to keep their families safe fear the threat of an imminent ground offensive. They hold little hope for the future, with no regular schooling and little access to nutritious food. Images of wounded and screaming children, covered in dust or being pulled out of rubble, have become a daily reality in Aleppo.

“We are totally resigned to God’s will,” said Khaled Sakka, a father of 10 children, all under the age of 14. He, his three wives and the children all sleep in one room in the middle of the house, the only safety measure they have against the nightly airstrikes.

“The bombs are bringing down five-story buildings. They are even reaching bunkers,” he said.

Wounded children are often left untreated, sometimes to die, in Aleppo’s overwhelmed hospitals. Only 30 doctors remain in opposition-held neighborhoods: One physician for every 10,000 people, compared to a peacetime standard of one for every 1,000, Touma said.

“It is very difficult to know how many (children) are traumatized, but one would imagine every single one is impacted by the horrors, especially with the intensification of the violence in the past week,” she said.

So-called bunker-busting bombs, designed to target underground structures, have been widely used, possibly to crush tunnels or bunkers used as refuge by the thousands of rebel fighters defending the districts.

But the powerful bombs also threaten the underground shelters where civilians take refuge and where children go to school. For the past several years, most classes have been held in basements because of the constant fighting and threat of airstrikes.

“The use of bunker-busting bombs means there is literally nowhere we can keep children safe, ” said Nick Finney of Save the Children, which runs 13 schools in eastern Aleppo, eight of them held underground. “We’re now more likely to see children being pulled from the rubble or treated on the floor of a hospital than sitting at a school desk.”

When schools opened across the country this month, they remained closed in eastern Aleppo because of the danger, said Brita Haj, the head of the local council in the rebel-held part of the city.

Medics say the death toll among children and other residents may be far higher than reported, since some families bury their dead without taking them to hospitals or morgues, and many victims remain buried in the rubble.

Dr. Hatem, a pediatrician, said women and children make up a large percentage of the victims because they are the ones who stay at home. As one of two pediatricians in besieged Aleppo, Hatem said he had an enormous load even before the last week’s intensification of fighting, treating 80 to 120 children a day.

Now he’s seeing a spike in wounded children in intensive care, from four or five a month to four or five a day. There is also a rise in aggressive behavior among children and various signs of trauma such as bed-wetting or losing the ability to walk or talk, said Hatem, who gave only his last name out of security fears.

Ghazl Qassem was at home with her four siblings, her pregnant mother, cousins and grandmother when the bomb struck Tuesday around midday. Their apartment building is adjacent to a hospital in a neighborhood with a number of specialized clinics; hospitals and clinics have been frequent targets in the recent campaign.

The children’s father, Hussein, was not home at the time.

Since Tuesday’s attack he has not moved from the rubble as the bodies of his family members have been pulled out one after the other, including his wife and three other children, said a neighbor, Tamim Selim.

Ghazl is staying with an aunt. “She is having nightmares. She is still in shock. She sleeps and wakes up, reaches for her mother’s phone and watches photos there and cries,” Selim said.

Abdul-Majid Malah, a father of three who lives nearby, rushed to the scene after the bomb.

“I only saw the dust. When it settled, the building was all on the ground. It was like dominos,” he said.

His children, ages 2, 3 and 4, rush into his arms every time they hear a bomb, he said. Then a minute later, they go back to playing.

There is no adequate underground shelter in his building for Malah, his pregnant wife and children to take refuge.

“We can only pray that the bombs don’t hit us at home,” he said, adding that he stays up all night tracking where the missiles are hitting. “I won’t be able to change fate, but I am too stressed out to fall asleep.”

The park next to their house was bombed last month, so the children have not been allowed to venture outside. On Friday, incendiary bombs hit outside their building, but no one was hurt.

“We only survive on hope,” he said. </s> BEIRUT — The 6-year-old girl was found trapped under the rubble of her home, destroyed by an airstrike in Syria’s rebel-held city of Aleppo. “Dust!” she wailed as rescue workers pried away the stones and debris on top of her, finally freeing her and placing her on a stretcher as she screamed for her father.

“Forget the dust. I’ll wash your face and give you water. Come on, sweetheart,” one rescuer said.

Bruised and battered but alive, Ghazl Qassem was among the lucky survivors of the attack earlier this week. Four days later, rescue workers were still digging Friday through the rubble of the apartment building after pulling out the bodies of 20 people, including nine children, most from Ghazl’s family. They were searching for at least three others believed inside.

At least 96 children are among the 320 people killed in Aleppo since a cease-fire collapsed on Sept. 19, according to UNICEF, as Syrian and Russian warplanes barrage the city’s eastern opposition neighborhoods, trying to crush more than five years of resistance there. Almost a third of the 840 people wounded over the same period are children, according to the World Health Organization.

“Aleppo is one of the most dangerous places in the world, and in the last week it has become perhaps the most dangerous place in the world for children.” Juliette Touma, regional chief of communications for the U.N children’s agency told The Associated Press.

Nearly 300,000 people — including 100,000 children — are trapped in Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern districts, a pocket of resistance some eight miles long and three miles wide that civil defense workers say has been hit by 1,900 bombs in the past week. The campaign has wreaked destruction on hospitals, clinics, residential buildings, water stations and electric generators.

Parents desperately struggling to keep their families safe fear the threat of an imminent ground offensive. They hold little hope for the future, with no regular schooling and little access to nutritious food. Images of wounded and screaming children, covered in dust or being pulled out of rubble, have become a daily reality in Aleppo.

“We are totally resigned to God’s will,” said Khaled Sakka, a father of 10 children, all under the age of 14. He, his three wives and the children all sleep in one room in the middle of the house, the only safety measure they have against the nightly airstrikes.

“The bombs are bringing down five-story buildings. They are even reaching bunkers,” he said.

Wounded children are often left untreated, sometimes to die, in Aleppo’s overwhelmed hospitals. Only 30 doctors remain in opposition-held neighborhoods: One physician for every 10,000 people, compared to a peacetime standard of one for every 1,000, Touma said.

“It is very difficult to know how many (children) are traumatized, but one would imagine every single one is impacted by the horrors, especially with the intensification of the violence in the past week,” she said.

So-called bunker-busting bombs, designed to target underground structures, have been widely used, possibly to crush tunnels or bunkers used as refuge by the thousands of rebel fighters defending the districts.

But the powerful bombs also threaten the underground shelters where civilians take refuge and where children go to school. For the past several years, most classes have been held in basements because of the constant fighting and threat of airstrikes.

“The use of bunker-busting bombs means there is literally nowhere we can keep children safe, “ said Nick Finney of Save the Children, which runs 13 schools in eastern Aleppo, eight of them held underground. “We’re now more likely to see children being pulled from the rubble or treated on the floor of a hospital than sitting at a school desk.”

When schools opened across the country this month, they remained closed in eastern Aleppo because of the danger, said Brita Haj, the head of the local council in the rebel-held part of the city.

Medics say the death toll among children and other residents may be far higher than reported, since some families bury their dead without taking them to hospitals or morgues, and many victims remain buried in the rubble.

Dr. Hatem, a pediatrician, said women and children make up a large percentage of the victims because they are the ones who stay at home. As one of two pediatricians in besieged Aleppo, Hatem said he had an enormous load even before the last week’s intensification of fighting, treating 80 to 120 children a day.

Now he’s seeing a spike in wounded children in intensive care, from four or five a month to four or five a day. There is also a rise in aggressive behavior among children and various signs of trauma such as bed-wetting or losing the ability to walk or talk, said Hatem, who gave only his last name out of security fears.

Ghazl Qassem was at home with her four siblings, her pregnant mother, cousins and grandmother when the bomb struck Tuesday around midday. Their apartment building is adjacent to a hospital in a neighborhood with a number of specialized clinics; hospitals and clinics have been frequent targets in the recent campaign.

The children’s father, Hussein, was not home at the time.

Since Tuesday’s attack he has not moved from the rubble as the bodies of his family members have been pulled out one after the other, including his wife and three other children, said a neighbor, Tamim Selim.

Ghazl is staying with an aunt. “She is having nightmares. She is still in shock. She sleeps and wakes up, reaches for her mother’s phone and watches photos there and cries,” Selim said.

Abdul-Majid Malah, a father of three who lives nearby, rushed to the scene after the bomb.

“I only saw the dust. When it settled, the building was all on the ground. It was like dominos,” he said.

His children, ages 2, 3 and 4, rush into his arms every time they hear a bomb, he said. Then a minute later, they go back to playing.

There is no adequate underground shelter in his building for Malah, his pregnant wife and children to take refuge.

“We can only pray that the bombs don’t hit us at home,” he said, adding that he stays up all night tracking where the missiles are hitting. “I won’t be able to change fate, but I am too stressed out to fall asleep.”

The park next to their house was bombed last month, so the children have not been allowed to venture outside. On Friday, incendiary bombs hit outside their building, but no one was hurt.

“We only survive on hope,” he said. </s> BEIRUT — The 6-year-old girl was found trapped under the rubble of her home, destroyed by an airstrike in Syria’s rebel-held city of Aleppo. “Dust!” she wailed as rescue workers pried away the stones and debris on top of her, finally freeing her and placing her on a stretcher as she screamed for her father.

“Forget the dust. I’ll wash your face and give you water. Come on, sweetheart,” one rescuer said.

Bruised and battered but alive, Ghazl Qassem was among the lucky survivors of the attack earlier this week. Four days later, rescue workers were still digging Friday through the rubble of the apartment building after pulling out the bodies of 20 people, including nine children, most from Ghazl’s family. They were searching for at least three others believed inside.

At least 96 children are among the 320 people killed in Aleppo since a cease-fire collapsed on Sept. 19, according to UNICEF, as Syrian and Russian warplanes barrage the city’s eastern opposition neighborhoods, trying to crush more than five years of resistance there. Almost a third of the 840 people wounded over the same period are children, according to the World Health Organization.

“Aleppo is one of the most dangerous places in the world, and in the last week it has become perhaps the most dangerous place in the world for children.” Juliette Touma, regional chief of communications for the U.N children’s agency told The Associated Press.

Nearly 300,000 people — including 100,000 children — are trapped in Aleppo’s rebel-held eastern districts, a pocket of resistance some eight miles long and three miles wide that civil defense workers say has been hit by 1,900 bombs in the past week. The campaign has wreaked destruction on hospitals, clinics, residential buildings, water stations and electric generators.

Parents desperately struggling to keep their families safe fear the threat of an imminent ground offensive. They hold little hope for the future, with no regular schooling and little access to nutritious food. Images of wounded and screaming children, covered in dust or being pulled out of rubble, have become a daily reality in Aleppo.

“We are totally resigned to God’s will,” said Khaled Sakka, a father of 10 children, all under the age of 14. He, his three wives and the children all sleep in one room in the middle of the house, the only safety measure they have against the nightly airstrikes.

“The bombs are bringing down five-story buildings. They are even reaching bunkers,” he said.

Wounded children are often left untreated, sometimes to die, in Aleppo’s overwhelmed hospitals. Only 30 doctors remain in opposition-held neighborhoods: One physician for every 10,000 people, compared to a peacetime standard of one for every 1,000, Touma said.

“It is very difficult to know how many (children) are traumatized, but one would imagine every single one is impacted by the horrors, especially with the intensification of the violence in the past week,” she said.

So-called bunker-busting bombs, designed to target underground structures, have been widely used, possibly to crush tunnels or bunkers used as refuge by the thousands of rebel fighters defending the districts.

But the powerful bombs also threaten the underground shelters where civilians take refuge and where children go to school. For the past several years, most classes have been held in basements because of the constant fighting and threat of airstrikes.

“The use of bunker-busting bombs means there is literally nowhere we can keep children safe, “ said Nick Finney of Save the Children, which runs 12 schools in eastern Aleppo, eight of them held underground. “We’re now more likely to see children being pulled from the rubble or treated on the floor of a hospital than sitting at a school desk.”

When schools opened across the country this month, they remained closed in eastern Aleppo because of the danger, said Brita Haj, the head of the local council in the rebel-held part of the city.

Medics say the death toll among children and other residents may be far higher than reported, since some families bury their dead without taking them to hospitals or morgues, and many victims remain buried in the rubble.

Dr. Hatem, a pediatrician, said women and children make up a large percentage of the victims because they are the ones who stay at home. As one of two pediatricians in besieged Aleppo, Hatem said he had an enormous load even before the last week’s intensification of fighting, treating 80 to 120 children a day.

Now he’s seeing a spike in wounded children in intensive care, from four or five a month to four or five a day. There is also a rise in aggressive behavior among children and various signs of trauma such as bed-wetting or losing the ability to walk or talk, said Hatem, who gave only his last name out of security fears.

Ghazl Qassem was at home with her four siblings, her pregnant mother, cousins and grandmother when the bomb struck Tuesday around midday. Their apartment building is adjacent to a hospital in a neighborhood with a number of specialized clinics; hospitals and clinics have been frequent targets in the recent campaign.

The children’s father, Hussein, was not home at the time.

Since Tuesday’s attack he has not moved from the rubble as the bodies of his family members have been pulled out one after the other, including his wife and three other children, said a neighbor, Tamim Selim.

Ghazl is staying with an aunt. “She is having nightmares. She is still in shock. She sleeps and wakes up, reaches for her mother’s phone and watches photos there and cries,” Selim said.

Abdul-Majid Malah, a father of three who lives nearby, rushed to the scene after the bomb.

“I only saw the dust. When it settled, the building was all on the ground. It was like dominos,” he said.

His children, ages 2, 3 and 4, rush into his arms every time they hear a bomb, he said. Then a minute later, they go back to playing.

There is no adequate underground shelter in his building for Malah, his pregnant wife and children to take refuge.

“We can only pray that the bombs don’t hit us at home,” he said, adding that he stays up all night tracking where the missiles are hitting. “I won’t be able to change fate, but I am too stressed out to fall asleep.”

The park next to their house was bombed last month, so the children have not been allowed to venture outside. On Friday, incendiary bombs hit outside their building, but no one was hurt.

“We only survive on hope,” he said. </s> BEIRUT — The 6-year-old girl was found trapped under the rubble of her home, destroyed by an airstrike in Syria's rebel-held city of Aleppo. "Dust!" she wailed as rescue workers pried away the stones and debris on top of her, finally freeing her and placing her on a stretcher as she screamed for her father.

Bruised and battered but alive, Ghazl Qassem was among the lucky survivors of the attack earlier this week. Four days later, rescue workers were still digging Friday through the rubble of the apartment building after pulling out the bodies of 20 people, including nine children, most from Ghazl's family. They were searching for at least three others believed inside.

At least 96 children are among the 320 people killed in Aleppo since a cease-fire collapsed on Sept. 19, according to UNICEF, as Syrian and Russian warplanes barrage the city's eastern opposition , trying to crush more than five years of resistance there. Almost a third of the 840 people wounded over the same period are children, according to the World Health Organization.

"Aleppo is one of the most dangerous places in the world, and in the last week it has become perhaps the most dangerous place in the world for children." Juliette Touma, regional chief of communications for the U.N children's agency told The Associated Press.

Nearly 300,000 people — including 100,000 children — are trapped in Aleppo's rebel-held eastern districts, a pocket of resistance some eight miles long and three miles wide that civil workers say has been hit by 1,900 bombs in the past week. The campaign has wreaked destruction on hospitals, clinics, residential buildings, water stations and electric generators.

Parents desperately struggling to keep their families safe fear the threat of an imminent ground offensive. They hold little hope for the future, with no regular schooling and little access to nutritious food. Images of wounded and screaming children, covered in dust or being pulled out of rubble, have become a daily reality in Aleppo.

"We are totally resigned to God's will," said Khaled Sakka, a father of 10 children, all under the age of 14. He, his three wives and the children all sleep in one room in the middle of the house, the only safety measure they have against the nightly airstrikes.

"It is very difficult to know how many (children) are traumatized, but one would imagine every single one is impacted by the horrors, especially with the intensification of the violence in the past week," she said.

But the powerful bombs also threaten the underground shelters where civilians take refuge and where children go to school. For the past several years, most classes have been held in basements because of the constant fighting and threat of airstrikes.

"The use of bunker-busting bombs means there is literally nowhere we can keep children safe, " said Nick Finney of Save the Children, which runs 12 schools in eastern Aleppo, eight of them held underground. "We're now more likely to see children being pulled from the rubble or treated on the floor of a hospital than sitting at a school desk."

Medics say the death toll among children and other residents may be far higher than reported, since some families bury their dead without taking them to hospitals or morgues, and many victims remain buried in the rubble.

Dr. Hatem, a pediatrician, said women and children make up a large percentage of the victims because they are the ones who stay at home. As one of two pediatricians in besieged Aleppo, Hatem said he had an enormous load even before the last week's intensification of fighting, treating 80 to 120 children a day.

Now he's seeing a spike in wounded children in intensive care, from four or five a month to four or five a day. There is also a rise in aggressive among children and various signs of trauma such as bed-wetting or losing the ability to walk or talk, said Hatem, who gave only his last name out of security fears.

Ghazl Qassem was at home with her four siblings, her pregnant mother, cousins and grandmother when the bomb struck Tuesday around midday. Their apartment building is adjacent to a hospital in a with a number of specialized clinics; hospitals and clinics have been frequent targets in the recent campaign.

Since Tuesday's attack he has not moved from the rubble as the bodies of his family members have been pulled out one after the other, including his wife and three other children, said a , Tamim Selim. </s> Unicef has issued a horrific report claiming that an unofficial ‘holocaust’ killing huge numbers of children in Syria has been completely ignored by the West.

According to the report, 2016 saw the Syrian war kill more children than any other year, with 652 dead as a result of the West’s meddling in the country.

255 of the children killed where in or a near a school, according to the report, which is a 20% jump from the number killed during 2015. The UN concludes that 2016 marks the worst year for ‘grave violations’ than any year since the war begun.

The figure includes only formally verified deaths, meaning the number could be far higher.

Unicef believes more than 850 children were recruited to fight in 2016.

The number is double that of 2015, the report states. Those recruited increasingly found themselves on the frontline or, in extreme cases, used as executioners, suicide bombers or prison guards.

“The depth of suffering is unprecedented,” said Geert Cappelaere, Unicef regional director for the Middle East and North Africa speaking from Homs, Syria.

“Millions of children in Syria come under attack on a daily basis, their lives turned upside down.”

Six years ago this week, the first protests against Bashar al-Assad’s rule began in Syria. The protests led to a violent crackdown and then civil war.

On Monday, the UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the death toll from the conflict had topped 320,000.

The first protests were held to demand the release of teenage students held, then tortured, for writing anti-government graffiti.

Since then, the toll on children has only increased, aid agencies say.

Mr Cappelaere added: “Each and every child is scarred for life with horrific consequences on their health, well-being, and future.”

Last week, Save the Children warned millions of Syrian children could be living in a state of “toxic stress”, which the charity feared may become irreversible without immediate help.

It also found two-thirds of children had either lost a loved one, had their house bombed or shelled, or been injured as a result of the war. </s> In this August 27 photo provided by the Syrian anti-government activist group Aleppo Media Center (AMC), shows a Syrian man carrying a girl away from the rubble of a destroyed building after barrel bombs were dropped on the Bab al-Nairab neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria. Nearly 100 children were killed in a single week in Aleppo as Syrian and Russian warplanes sought to bombard into submission the rebel eastern districts of the city that have held out against Syrian government forces for five years. Without hope for the future, no regular schooling and little access to nutritious food, the children of Aleppo and their parents struggle to survive and fear the threat an imminent ground offensive.(Aleppo Media Center via AP) </s> (CNN) Syrian regime forces pounded eastern Aleppo with airstrikes for a sixth straight day Sunday, bringing the death toll to almost 300 in the most intense bombing since the war began five years ago, rescuers say.

Among the latest reported violence: a suspected chemical attack that killed four children and their parents. Two activist groups -- the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights and Aleppo Media Center -- said a barrage of barrel bombs struck their neighborhood, al-Sakhour.

A wounded child is rescued by a White Helmets volunteer after airstrikes on eastern Aleppo Friday.

"This is the heaviest bombardment I have seen in the past five years," said Ismail Abdallah from the White Helmets.

At a time when hospitals are desperately needed, few have withstood the relentless bombardment -- not a single one is operating at full capacity, the Syrian American Medical Society told CNN.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the assault and "indiscriminate shelling" for killing and maiming scores of civilians, including children, and for leaving eastern Aleppo without a functioning hospital.

"The secretary-general reminds all parties to the conflict that targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime," the statement said. "Those responsible for these and other atrocities in Syria, whoever and wherever they are, must one day be brought to account."

Disturbing video shows devastated family

A video from the Aleppo Media Center shows the toll in one neighborhood.

Five bodies -- three children, two adults -- are visible in the bed of a truck, covered in colorful blankets in the cold air. Their neighbors surround them in the street covered with rubble from bombed buildings.

The mother wears a lavender, black and pink headdress and red sweater. The father wears a heavy off-white or tan sweater while the two boys died in dark blue sweaters, matching their skin; a toddler girl is clad in a baby-blue one, emblazoned with a cartoon character.

Their eyes stare, their mouths are agape.

"We were sleeping when a barrel bomb fell near our home," a man explains on the video. "We went down and discovered it was chlorine gas. The victims weren't activists or anything ... but they were suffocating so much, they turned blue. It was a man, four kids, and his wife. The oldest boy was 10 years old. Why did this happen? May God curse you, Bashar (al-Assad)."

Another man shows coins to the videographer from the Aleppo Media Center, which appear tarnished. The man says he took the coins from the pockets of the dead. "The gas caused them to change color," he says.

They weren't the only fatalities from the suspected gas attack. A young man says his family was asleep at 1 a.m. when they were awakened by an explosion.

"We came down and started choking. We discovered it was chlorine gas," he said. "My mother was suffocating and my brother-in-law started foaming at the mouth."

'Aleppo is a Holocaust'

Syria's grinding five-year conflict has devastated Aleppo, divided between government-controlled areas in the west and rebel positions in the east.

A White Helmets volunteer carries an injured man to safety on Saturday following an airstrike in eastern Aleppo.

The regime, backed by Russian air power, has decimated much of eastern Aleppo with aerial bombardments in recent months, and analysts have said the intensified air raids are a sign the regime may be planning a ground offensive to wrest control of the area.

A government siege on eastern Aleppo since July has essentially cut the area off from the rest of the world -- a stranglehold tactic that the Syrian regime is infamous for.

Today, eastern Aleppo is desperately short of food, medicine and fuel supplies, while the roads are full of rubble from destroyed buildings. The sound of bombings and news of children dying are the norm.

"Inside the city of Aleppo is a Holocaust," an Aleppo resident, who describes himself as an independent media activist, told CNN.

JUST WATCHED One of the few doctors left in Aleppo speaks to CNN Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH One of the few doctors left in Aleppo speaks to CNN 02:37

He said neighbors and families were sharing what little food they had left to survive.

The United Nations has pushed to get into the area to deliver aid, and on Sunday it announced it had designed a detailed humanitarian plan to provide assistance and medical evacuations from Syria. It said it had shared the plan with all parties in the conflict, as well as its member states.

"It is imperative all parties agree to the plan and allow us to secure immediate, safe and unimpeded access to provide relief to those most in need in east Aleppo, but equally in all other parts of Syria where there are people in need," read a joint statement from Syria Humanitarian Coordinator Ali Al-Za'tari and Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis and Kevin Kennedy.

Children in the crosshairs

Meanwhile, in regime-held western Aleppo, rebel rocket fire hit a school in the government-held al-Furqan neighborhood, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Mouallem said at a news conference in Damascus.

He said 10 students were killed in the attack, while the state-run news agency SANA put the number at eight.

"What did those kids do to die? I am sad about these students' death," he said.

JUST WATCHED War a daily routine for Aleppo's youngest victims Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH War a daily routine for Aleppo's youngest victims 02:42

A student at Aleppo University in the west told CNN that security forces had gathered students in the university's main square on Sunday to protest against rebels in eastern Aleppo.

The student, who CNN is not naming for security reasons, also said they had been told to appeal to the United Nations to have opposition armed groups removed from the east so the siege on civilians can be lifted.

It is unclear how many children have died in the attacks, but at least eight have been reported killed in eastern Aleppo, and eight in the city's west. Activists said there were likely to be more children among the dead.

'Stop bombing hospitals'

Medical charities have renewed calls on the regime to stop targeting health facilities.

"For the first time, eastern Aleppo is out of hospitals operating at full capacity," said Dr. Mazen Kewara, director of the Syrian American Medical Society's Turkey office.

Several major trauma hospitals have been knocked out of service, the organization said, while three floors were destroyed in eastern Aleppo's only dedicated children's hospital, forcing the evacuation of babies, said the charity Doctors Without Borders, which also is known by its French initials MSF.

But activists working in the city said as many as five other hospitals in eastern neighborhoods were still somewhat functional.

Hospitals are desperately needed as 250,000 people remain in eastern Aleppo, pounded by airstrikes.

Doctors Without Borders emergency coordinator Teresa Sancristoval said Saturday's bombardment of hospitals marked "a dark day for east Aleppo."

"The attacks have destroyed entire hospitals, electric generators, emergency rooms and wards, forcing them to stop all medical activities," she said.

"It is not only MSF that condemns indiscriminate attacks on civilians or civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, but also humanitarian law. The message is simple and I don't know how to say it any louder: Stop bombing hospitals."

Tried protecting generator from shrapnel with sand bags. Attacks have destroyed emergency rooms, entire hospitals. https://t.co/MLO8b4qle1 pic.twitter.com/exqDOzz4WV — Doctors w/o Borders (@MSF_USA) November 19, 2016

Staffan De Mistura, the envoy of the United Nations secretary general, met with Syrian Foreign Ministry officials on Sunday and said there was "a total denial of any aerial bombing of hospitals in eastern Aleppo," Reuters reported.

"We should be allowed to send a verification team to verify the damage in hospitals in eastern and western Aleppo," he said.
The UN's children's charity UNICEF has called the effect of the war in Aleppo on children as the worst seen since the conflict began, and says at least 96 children have been killed and 223 have been injured in Eastern Aleppo September 23.