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BEIRUT / AP
Syrian activists said on Wednesday that dozens of people were killed or missing after an airstrike the day before leveled a school near the IS-held city of Raqqa where displaced families had sought refuge.
The activist-run group Raqqa is Being Slaughtered Silently said some 50 families had been sheltering at the school in the northern Syrian village of Mansoura and that their fate was still unknown. Mansoura is 26 kilometers (16 miles) west of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the extremists’ self-described caliphate, and is under their control.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 33 bodies had been pulled from the rubble. The two organizations rely on local contacts to smuggle news out of IS-held territory.
It was not immediately clear who carried out the airstrike. Syrian Kurdish forces have been advancing on Raqqa under the cover of US-led coalition airstrikes and are now 8 kilometers north of the city. Syrian and Russian aircraft have also carried out strikes against the IS group.