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A rights group has said the escalation in fighting in Syria has also forced hundreds of schools across the country to suspend classes over the past two weeks.

Save the Children in a statement on Thursday that teachers have recently been sending children home in terror as bombs and shells fall nearby.

"There has been heavy shelling for the last 10 days, which has led to most of the schools closing and stopping their classes because of fear," a school principal in Idlib said.

"The planes have been flying overhead continuously, which has led to the children being absolutely terrified - and the families and teachers as well," he added.

Save the Children said that vital education and psychological support for tens of thousands of Syrian children has been disrupted and at least three schools have been attacked in the past week.

A counsellor at a primary school in rural Aleppo, said: "The planes have attacked schools. The horrific attacks have impacted the students psychologically."

The statement also says that 55 of the 60 schools and learning spaces that it supports in the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo - attended by nearly 20,000 children - have had to shut for days at a time to try and keep the children safe.

Sonia Khush, Save the Children's Syria director, said: "Education in Syria is yet again coming under attack, and it is too dangerous to keep the schools open while bombs are falling all around."

Moscow has been carrying out relentless airstrikes in support of its ally Damascus targeting both IS in Deir az-Zour province and rival extremists led by al-Qaeda's former Syria affiliate in Idlib province in the northwest.

On Thursday, the Red Cross said Syria was experiencing its worst levels of violence since the battle for second city Aleppo late last year.

"For the past two weeks, we have seen an increasingly worrying spike in military operations that correlates with high levels of civilian casualties," Marianne Gasser, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Syria, said.