Children among dead in Syria barrel bomb attack

(CNN)    A barrel bomb killed more than a dozen people, including children, in one of two deadly attacks Thursday in the Syrian city of Aleppo, the Aleppo Media Center (AMC) says. At least five children were among those killed in the rebel-held neighborhood Bab al-Nayrab it says. Several videos were posted online by the AMC following the airstrike. The harrowing footage includes two young boys covered in dust, desperately clinging to each other and crying after learning their brother had died.

"My brother is gone," one sobs.

READ: The free-for-all in Syria will make your head spin

Amnesty International says barrel bombs are a common tactic of the Syrian regime. The strikes come amid Russia's agreement to a 48-hour ceasefire and the United Nations' emphasis on a need for one. The group also reported eight people were killed Thursday, including two children, when rebels fired mortar rounds into regime-held areas in western Aleppo.

Last week a video posted by the Aleppo Media Center captivated the world and was another stark reminder of the toll of the war in Syria. It showed a boy, Omran Daqneesh no older than five years old bloodied and covered with dusk, sitting silently in an ambulance awaiting help after his family's house was destroyed by an airstrike.

'I lost five children'

A Syrian woman reacts following a reported barrel bomb attack on the Bab al-Nairab neighbourhood of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.

Activists posted videos of the barrel bomb attacks online. CNN cannot independently verify their authenticity.

The videos purportedly taken in the rebel-held area in southern Aleppo show rescuers helping survivors and searching for the missing. Residents dig through rubble, looking for loved ones.

Men and women carry dead children covered with dust, sobbing and crying. In one of the videos, a man sits outside his demolished house, visibly upset. "Don't step over them," he says, referring to his family members. "I lost my five children, oh God."

Mother speaks to dead child

Another video posted by activists in Aleppo shows a woman speaking to her dead child. "Hassan, it's your mom," the mother says as she looks at the child whose eyes are still open. "He is my son ... he is gone," she screams. "My sons, your brother is dead, your brother is dead."

She touches his face and closes his eyes. As the stories of death and destruction come out of Aleppo, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and US Secretary of State John Kerry will hold talks in Geneva on Friday that will focus on Syria.

"Unless fighting stops inside, unless those pauses first happen and then become permanent, there's millions of people that are trapped inside the country and I hate to think what their fate is if we cannot reach them very quickly," said Filippo Grandi, the UN High commissioner for refugees.

'Don't look'

Videos purportedly taken in the rebel-held area in southern Aleppo show rescuers helping survivors.

Another video purportedly shows a chaotic scene at the hospital as women, men and children frantically search for their loved ones. A child lies on a hospital bed in shock as he looks around, covered in dust. Two girls on the ground cry for a lost family member as their father tells them not to look at the carnage. "Don't look, turn your eyes away," he implores.

Chemical weapons

In addition to barrel bombs, the Syrian regime has been accused of using other forms of weapons. The White House condemned the Syrian government Thursday after announcing that a year-long UN-backed investigation found President Bashar al-Assad's government and ISIS had used chemical weapons.

"It is now impossible to deny that the Syrian regime has repeatedly used industrial chlorine as a weapon against its own people," US National Security Council (NSC) spokesman Ned Price said in a statement Wednesday. The NSC statement accused the regime of violating the Chemical Weapons Convention and a UN resolution.

The findings of the new UN report is sure to revive Republican opposition to President Barack Obama's handling of the issue of Syrian chemical weapons. In August 2012, Obama described the use of such weapons as constituting a "red line" that, if crossed, would force the US to consider intervening.