At least 50 dead after Aleppo air raids

The death toll in this week's regime air raids on the Syrian city of Aleppo has risen to more than 50, after dozens of those wounded in the attacks died in city and field hospitals overnight.

One of the doctors working in the city, Baraa Abul Majd, said the number was expected to rise further throughout Friday, due to the number of people who had sustained critical injuries in the abdomen, chest and head.

Abul Majd said that the injuries point to the Syrian regime aircraft's use of a new type of "vacuum" missile, as the majority of those injured had internal bleeding in the brain or laceration in the lung tissues and tears to internal organs.

These injuries, he said, required urgent surgery to stop internal bleeding, but the very limited medical capabilities in Aleppo and its surrounding countryside have led to a high fatality rate.

The Syrian Civil Defence group that operates in areas controlled by the opposition in Aleppo said that an airstrike on a residential building near the Abdul-Qadir al-Jilani mosque in the Saliheen neighbourhood in eastern Aleppo killed five civilians and wounded ten others with varying degrees of severity.

The death toll from a civilian apartment building targeted in Sid al-Lawz Street, including a market in the Sha'ar neighbourhood, has risen to 15 people. Civil Defence teams continue to pull people out from under the rubble there.

In the Sha'ar neighbourhood, a further five people were killed and dozens injured when Nour al-Shuhada mosque was targeted, according to medical sources.

Seven people were killed and more than 10 injured in Syrian regime airstrikes on a residential apartment in the Kalasa neighbourhood of central Aleppo.

Syrian activists also counted nine civilian casualties - five women, two men and two children - after an air raid on the Tel as-Sawda area of central Aleppo.