BEIRUT (AP) — Three members of Lebanon’s militant Hezbollah group died of wounds sustained while fighting for control of a strategic Syrian town near the Lebanese border, activists said today, as the battle in the area raged for its third straight day.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the deaths raise to 31 the number of fighters Hezbollah, a staunch ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has lost in the struggle for the town of Qusair since Sunday.

The town, which had been in rebel hands for more than a year, was the target of a government offensive in recent weeks, with the surrounding countryside engulfed in fighting as regime troops backed by Hezbollah fighters seized nearby villages and closed in. On Sunday, Assad’s forces pushed deep inside Qusair, taking control of more than 60 percent of the town, but still fighting street battles with rebels in several districts.

At least 68 Syrian rebels and 9 Syrian army soldiers were also killed in the fighting since Sunday, the Observatory said. The group relies on a wide network of activists on the ground in Syria.

The government has not confirmed the soldiers’ deaths because Damascus does not publicly acknowledge its own losses in the civil war. Now in its third year, the conflict has claimed more than 70,000 lives.

UNICEF said it was “extremely concerned” about the safety of civilians in the embattled town. In a statement today, the UN child protection agency said up to 20,000 civilians, many of them women and children, could be trapped there by the fighting.

In recent days, hundreds of families have fled into Lebanon, while many others have sought shelter in safer parts of Syria, UNICEF said.

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