Syrian warplanes bombed the rebel-held town of Douma near Damascus and parts of Aleppo in the north on Saturday, killing 23 people, with the death toll likely to rise, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Mediators have struggled to get combatants in Syria`s five-year-old war to honour a Feb. 27 cessation of hostilities deal to enable peace talks in Geneva to proceed. Each side accuses the other of violating the truce.

Fighting has escalated around Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, Damascus and other areas over the past week and the main opposition group walked out of Geneva peace talks this week in protest at government attacks.

The Geneva talks aim to end a war that has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world`s worst refugee crisis, allowed for the rise of the Islamic State group and drawn in regional and major powers. Russia`s intervention in the conflict beginning late last year has swayed the war in President Bashar al-Assad`s favour.

The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the Syrian war through a network of contacts, said the death toll in Douma, northeast of the capital, was expected to rise from 13 because more than 22 others were injured, some critically.

In a government-controlled camp near Douma, shelling killed a woman and child, and injured others, the Observatory said.

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