Aleppo, Syria: More than 80 people were killed when twin explosions rocked Aleppo University on Tuesday, the governor of Syria’s second city, Mohammad Wahid Akkad, and a source at the university hospital said.
“So far there are 82 fatalities and more than 160 wounded in a terrorist attack that targeted students on their first day of exams at the University of Aleppo,” Akkad told AFP by telephone.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that at least 52 people had been killed in the blasts but said the figure could rise dramatically.
As well as students, the campus houses some 30,000 people who have fled homes in areas of the city ravaged by fighting since July last year.
Video footage posted by students on the Internet showed tearful survivors taking refuge in a campus building.
Activists said missiles fired by government jets were responsible for the blasts. A military source said it was a stray surface-to-air missile fired by rebels.
The explosions struck an area near the university dormitories and the architecture faculty, the Observatory said.
State television said “terrorists launched two rockets” at the university complex, which lies in a government-controlled area of the battleground city.
The violence came a day after 165 people were killed across the country.
Meanwhile, an artillery attack in the central province of Homs killed at least 10 people, a watchdog said, adding that warplanes launched air strikes on multiple rebel bastions.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said five women were among those killed in the shelling of Houla in Homs province. “Houla sees daily shelling and daily fighting,” said Observatory director Rami Abdul Rahman.
Also yesterday, an air raid in the early hours on the rebel-held town of Al Bab killed at least eight people, half of them women, said the Britain-based Observatory. The watchdog also reported eruptions of violence on the edges of the capital.
Also yesterday, Syrian Prime Minister Wael Al Halaqi arrived in Tehran for consultations with his beleaguered regime’s key regional ally, state television reported.
