A wave of airstrikes and shelling killed more than 60 people in less than 24 hours in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, monitors and activists said Thursday.<br />The contested city is now one of the main battlegrounds of Syria's devastating civil war, with a cease-fire that has collapsed and peace talks in Geneva stalled.<br />At least 27 people died as a hospital supported by Doctors Without Borders and the International Committee for the Red Cross and nearby buildings were hit overnight in the rebel-held part of Aleppo.<br />The chief Syrian opposition negotiator Mohammed Alloush blamed the government of President Bashar Assad for the violence.<br />He denounced the intensive bombing as an attempt by Assad's government to drive the residents of Aleppo out, labelling it "a crime of ethnic and sectarian cleansing."
