PALMYRA (Syria) (Sputnik) — At least 44 civilians have been killed and 74 wounded in the past two weeks in Syria as terrorist groups have increased the number of provocations around Aleppo amid the general ceasefire, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
"In [the] past two weeks, the number and the scale of terrorist provocations in Aleppo have grown significantly — 44 civilians have been killed and 74, including children, have been wounded as a result of these attacks," spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said.
Syria has been mired in civil war since March 2011, with government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups, such as the ISIL (Daesh) and Jabhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front).
According to the UN refugee agency (UNHCR), 6.6 million Syrians are internally displaced, while over 4.8 million have fled the country. The pre-war population in Syria was over 20 million, according to UNHCR.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in late March that the death toll from the Syrian conflict could be over 500,000 people. Current UN estimates say that over 470,000 people have been killed amid violence in Syria, while almost two million have been wounded.
