A picture released by SANA shows Syrian Red Crescent members providing medical assistance to a victim a car bomb explosion outside the Akrameh al-Makhzumi school in Homs on October 1.

DAMASCUS — At least 41 Syrian children aged under 12 were killed on Wednesday, Oct. 1, in a double bombing at a school in the government-controlled city of Homs, a monitor group said.

They were among 48 people who died in the attacks in the Akrameh neighborhood, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, updating an earlier toll.

“At least 41 schoolchildren were killed in the double bombing at the Akrameh al-Makhzumi school in Homs city today. Several children are still missing, and the toll may rise further still,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The adults killed were four civilians and three members of the security forces.

One attacker carried out both bombings.

“He planted a bomb at one location at the school, and then blew himself up at another spot nearby,” Abdel Rahman told AFP of the attacker.

Pro-regime Facebook pages posted chilling pictures of the aftermath, including one of a pile of schoolbags abandoned on a pavement.

One page, named the Homs Youth Club, posted a video apparently shot at the scene, showing panicked residents rushing to evacuate children wearing blue and pink uniform..

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. But al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria, Al-Nusra Front, said it was behind a similar twin bombing in the central city that killed at least 12 people in May.

Speaking to AFP, Homs governor Talal al-Barazi gave a toll of 31 killed and 74 wounded in Wednesday’s attacks.

The children were between six and nine years old, he added.

The toll is among the highest suffered by children in suicide attacks in Syria since the conflict erupted more than three years ago.