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Aleppo attacks kill more than 100 children in recent weeks

Boys make their way through the rubble of damaged buildings in Aleppo's rebel-held area of al Kalaseh. Credit: Reuters

More than 100 children were among 338 people killed in Syria's besieged eastern Aleppo in the last few weeks, the World Health Organisation has said while making an appeal for the attacks to stop.

The WHO said 106 children had died and a further 846 people injured, including 261 children, in attacks that have included internationally condemned airstrikes on two trauma hospitals and bread queues and has seen incendiary and bunker-buster bombs used in an urban environment.

"We are asking for four things: stop the killing, stop attacks on health care, let the sick and wounded out and let the aid in," a senior official said.

The situation in Aleppo was described on Wednesday as worse than a slaughterhouse by UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who said the around-the-clock attacks on hospitals, clinics, ambulances and medical staff amounted to a "war against Syrian health workers".