IBLIN, (Syria): Seven children were among nine civilians killed by Syrian regime artillery fire Saturday in the northwestern rebel stronghold of Idlib, a war monitor said, as a UN agency condemned the “tragic” deaths.

The shelling also wounded around 15 others in several locations of the Jabal al-Zawiya area in the south of the stronghold, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

It killed five members of the same family — a man, his wife and three of their children — in the village of Iblin, two children in Balyun, and two girls in Balshun, it said.

In Iblin, an AFP photographer saw the bodies of the family arrive at a health dispensary, wrapped in woollen and cotton blankets.

Nurses and others prepared the bodies for burial, cleaning the bloodied corpse of a young boy before swaddling it in white fabric, he said.

The Idlib health directorate said the man killed in Iblin along with his family worked for its local branch.

The United Nations children’s agency, UNICEF, said the attacks were “just tragic” and “the worst” since a ceasefire brokered in March last year.