Barrel bombs dropped on refugee camp by Assad regime, activists claim

Residents of a displaced persons camp in northern Syria say a Syrian army helicopter dropped two barrel bombs on them on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Videos on YouTube appear to show the corpses of women and children at the camp in Idlib province, as well as burning tents and people scrambling to save the wounded, according to Reuters.

"It's a massacre of refugees," a man can be heard saying in one of the videos. "Let the whole world see this, they are displaced people. Look at them, they are civilians, displaced civilians. They fled the bombardment. "

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which tracks violence in the civil war, said 10 civilians died, although in one of the videos a man says the death toll was as high as 75.

The death toll and the attack itself could not be independently verified.

The Assad regime has been repeatedly accused of targeting civilian populations sympathetic to rebels seeking the president's ouster during the course of the three-year-old civil war.

In June, Syrian Deputy Foreign Minister Faisal Mekdad denied knowing anything about barrel bombs and their usage during an interview with CBS News.

Barrel bombs are cheap and crudely made -- a simple container packed with explosives and scrap metal. Unlike rockets or mortars which can be aimed, barrel bombs kill large numbers of people indiscriminately.

In January, Syrian refugees from Aleppo described their devastating effect to CBS News.