35 civilians killed in U.S.-led airstrikes in Syria, reports say

BEIRUT — A fresh wave of airstrikes in eastern Syria killed at least 35 civilians including women and children, state media and a monitoring group reported Friday, as the U.N. human rights chief said civilians are increasingly paying the price of escalating attacks against the Islamic State.

Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein’s comments came hours after airstrikes on the Islamic Stateheld eastern Syrian town of Mayadeen, where airstrikes Thursday night killed dozens, many of them relatives of Islamic State fighters.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the airstrikes were conducted by the U.S.-led coalition fighting the militants. It added that the airstrikes began around sunset Thursday as people were heading to mosques for evening prayers and continued until the early hours of Friday.

“The same civilians who are suffering indiscriminate shelling and summary executions by ISIL, are also falling victim to the escalating airstrikes, particularly in the northeastern governorates of ” Raqqa and Deir el-Zour, al-Hussein said in a statement from Geneva, using an acronym for the Islamic State. “Unfortunately, scant attention is being paid by the outside world to the appalling predicament of the civilians trapped in these areas.”

The Observatory later said a total of 106 people have been killed in Mayadeen since Thursday evening, including Islamic State fighters and 42 children.

The monitoring group said that among the 106 were 80 people who perished when a four-story building housing families of Islamic State fighters was destroyed.