AFP

Beirut

At least 19 people were killed overnight by Syrian rebel fire on government-controlled parts of the northern city of Aleppo, a monitor said yesterday.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the dead included at least five children, three of whom were killed with their mother when a rocket hit the car they were in.

The Britain-based group said at least 32 people were also wounded in Thursday night’s rocket attack in the western part of the city.

Yesterday, meanwhile, three people including a pregnant woman were killed by a ground-to-ground missile fired by government forces at a rebel district in eastern Aleppo, the Observatory said.

Once Syria’s economic hub, Aleppo has been ravaged by fighting that began there in mid-2012. The city is divided with government forces controlling the western part and rebels controlling the east.

However, government forces have advanced steadily around the eastern outskirts of the city, threatening to besiege opposition-held districts.

More than 200,000 people have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the conflict in March 2011, according to the Observatory.  More than 76,000 people were killed in 2014, making it the bloodiest year of the conflict, the group said on Thursday.

The Observatory recorded 76,021 deaths in Syria last year.

The group documented the deaths of nearly 18,000 civilians throughout 2014, among them 3,501 children.

The majority of the deaths were combatants, including nearly 17,000 jihadists, 15,747 rebel forces and 22,627 regime troops and militiamen, it said.