War monitor says Syrian government forces shelling killed 17

Shelling by Syrian government forces of rebel-held areas in the northwest of the country has killed 17 civilians over the past 24 hours, a war monitoring group said on Thursday.

The government forces' artillery fire targeted several locations and about half of those killed were under 18 years old, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The area is home to millions of refugees who fled the rebel-held city of Aleppo, which was last year reduced to rubble by warplanes from Russia, which is backing the dictator's regime.

The eight-year civil war has killed nearly 400,000 people, according to estimates, in scenes reminiscent of the urban devastation of World War 2.