More than 20 killed following government bombings in Syria's Aleppo

Government barrel bombs have killed at least 20 people in a rebel-held suburb of Aleppo, following an assault on Tuesday.

"Helicopters committed a massacre, dropping a barrel bomb on a mini-bus station in the Fardous district of Aleppo, killing 20 civilians, among them children, and injuring 30 more," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said, warning that the death toll was likely to rise.

Video footage taken by activists appeared to show burning vehicles and rubble:

Human rights organisations have condemend barrel bombs attacks, banned by the UN, as “indiscriminate”.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has previously denied using barrel bombs, dismissing the accusations as a “childish story.”

Last week, a report released by Amnesty Internatonal accused the government of committing “crimes against humanity” while also criticising the rebel side for “war crimes.”

"By relentlessly and deliberately targeting civilians the Syrian government appears to have adopted a callous policy of collective punishment against the civilian population of Aleppo," said Amnesty's Middle East and North Africa programme director Philip Luther.

The report also slammed the rebels for use of "imprecise weapons such as mortars and improvised rockets fitted with gas canisters called 'hell cannons'".

Aleppo had once been the heart of Syria's economic modernisations, but has been split between government forces in the West and rebel forces in the East since fighting broke out in mid-2012.

More than 220,000 people have been killed in Syria since March 2011, according to the SOHR.

Edward Dark, an Aleppo-based commentator, has previously described the sense of hopelessness pervading Aleppo.

"The people have lost all hope, and in their darkest times when the loud sounds of explosions and gunfire drown out whispered conversations, and the stench of gunpowder and blood fill the air and waft through the abandoned streets, they huddle together in the corridors of their houses praying, for there is little else they can do," he wrote for Middle east Eye.

"Many silently pray for a quick death, an end to their misery once and for all. There is no denying the bitter feeling of abandonment here, of helplessness and despair."