Civilians bear brunt as latest Syria strikes kill 35, U.N. says

British agency says aerial attacks were by U.S.-led coalition.

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 a i r s t r i ke s on t he I sl a mic State-held eastern Syrian town of Mayadeen, where airstrikes Thursday night killed dozens, many of them relatives of Islamic State fighters.

The Britain-based Syrian Obs e r v a t o r y f o r 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 Obser v a t or y l a t e r 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 peri shed when a four-story building housing families of Islamic State fighters from Syria and north Africa was destroyed in an airstrike. More than 20, including 10 Islamic State fighters, were killed in other airstrikes that hit the municipality building among other places.

Syria’s state news agency SANA, also blaming the coalition, said 35 civilians, most of them women and children, were killed in the airstrikes.

There was no immediate comment from the coalition. It is not unusual to have conflicting casualty figures in the immediate aftermath of airstrikes in Syria.

Reports of deaths among civilians have been on the rise as the fighting against the Islamic State intensifies in northern and eastern Syria.

Omar Abu Laila, a Europebased opposition activist who is originally from eastern Syria, said Mayadeen residents were urged through mosque loudspeakers to head to hospitals and clinics to donate blood. He also said that more airstrikes occurred in the early hours Friday. He added that about a dozen people were killed and that he is still waiting for casualty figures to emerge following the destruction of the building housing families of Islamic State fighters.

A l - H u s s e i n , t h e U. N . human rights chief, in a dramatic appeal on Friday urged all parties conducting strikes against the Islamic State in Syria to take greater care differentiating between military and civilian targets.

He cited a May 14 strike that reportedly killed 23 farm workers in a rural area of Raqqa province and an airstrike the following day that is said to have killed at least 59 civilians and wounded dozens in the IS-controlled eastern town of Boukamal that is also in in Deir el-Zour province.

Al-Hussein, who is a member of the Jordanian royal family, said the rising toll of civilian c asualties suggests “insufficient precautions” are being taken in the attacks.