Beirut, Sep 22 (IANS/EFE): At least 42 people, including 16 children and 11 women, have been killed in air raids launched by government forces in the northern Syrian province of Idleb, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said Monday.

SOHR reported that 23 people, 17 of whom were members of the same family, died in the town of Ahsem during the attacks that took place Sunday.

Nineteen others were killed in the town of Saraqeb after the planes dropped so-called "barrel bombs" on the town.

The London-based NGO said it expected the death toll to increase as many of the wounded were in critical condition.

The UN Security Council in February urged all parties in the conflict to immediately cease attacks against civilians and an end to the use of barrel bombs.

Barrel bombs are steel drums packed with explosives and shrapnel that can be especially deadly when dropped into heavily populated urban areas.

The UN has calculated that 191,369 people, 9,000 of whom were children, have died in the Syrian conflict pitting opposition fighters against the government of President Bashar al-Assad between March 2011 and April 2014.