| New York Times | - |
BEIRUT,
Lebanon - Airstrikes hit four hospitals in rebel-held northern Syria on
Monday, including child and maternity facilities, international aid
officials and witnesses reported.
Doctors Without Borders on Syria Strike
Dr. Mego Terzian of Doctors Without
Borders confirmed that at least seven people had died in a hospital in
Idlib Provence that was hit by an airstrike. He cast blame on the Syrian
and Russian governments.
By REUTERS on Publish Date February 15, 2016.
Photo by Agence France-Presse — Getty Images.
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BEIRUT, Lebanon — Airstrikes hit four hospitals in rebel-held northern Syria
on Monday, including child and maternity facilities, international aid
officials and witnesses reported. The United Nations said at least 50
people were killed, including children.
It
was unclear who was responsible for the attacks, which came days before
international powers have called for a “cessation of hostilities” in
the five-year Syria war. Russian and Syrian aircraft operate in the
areas where the hospitals were struck.
Two
of the four hospitals were supported by Unicef. Anthony Lake, Unicef’s
executive director, said in a statement, “Apart from compelling
considerations of diplomacy and obligations under international
humanitarian law, let us remember that these victims are children.”
Farhan
Haq, a spokesman for the United Nations in New York, told reporters at
midday that the death toll was 50. It remains unclear how many of the
casualties were children.
Doctors Without Borders,
the international medical charity, said the airstrikes destroyed one of
the hospitals it supports, killing at least seven, wounding eight and
leaving an unknown number of patients buried in rubble.
The
hospital, in the town of Maarat al-Noaman, in insurgent-held Idlib
Province, was hit by four missiles in two sets of attacks within a few
minutes of each other, the charity said, citing reports by hospital
staff members.
The charity added that about 15 other buildings had been struck in residential areas nearby.
It
was the second time in a week that a hospital working with the charity
was hit. The charity said an affiliated hospital was bombed in Dara’a
Province in southern Syria on Feb. 9.
“This
appears to be a deliberate attack on a health structure, and we condemn
this attack in the strongest possible terms,” Massimiliano Rebaudengo,
the Doctors Without Borders head of mission, said about Monday’s strike
on its affiliate. Deliberate attacks on medical facilities are forbidden
under international law.
The
hospital had 30 beds, 54 staff members, two operating rooms, clinics
and an emergency room, and its destruction leaves 40,000 people without
medical care, the charity said.
Antigovernment
activists and residents said warplanes also attacked three other
hospitals on Monday. Three people were killed and six wounded in one,
the National Hospital, which is also in Maarat al-Noaman. And in Azaz, a major prize in the fierce battles
unfolding in Aleppo Province, two hospitals were hit, at least one of
them by what residents and the Turkish government said was a ballistic
missile.
TURKEY
Azaz
Aleppo
IDLIB
Maarat al-Noaman
Mediterranean
Sea
Homs
SYRIA
LEBANON
Damascas
DARA’A
JORDAN
ISRAEL
50 mileS
A school housing displaced people was also damaged, residents said.
Azaz
is one of the most complex theaters of the war in Syria, with
combatants from many sides clashing, sometimes with putative allies.
Turkey has fired artillery into Syria, saying it is aiming at
Kurdish-led forces that have taken territory from Turkish-backed
fighters.
Russian officials have said their country’s airstrikes do not target civilians and have not killed any.
Russia’s
Foreign Ministry declared that Turkey, by shelling the Kurds as they
battled insurgents, was providing “direct support for international
terrorism.” It also insisted that the American-led coalition fighting
the Islamic State was responsible for the hospital bombing in Maarat
al-Noaman, but United States military officials said there were no
coalition strikes in the area. The United States and allied insurgent
groups say that Russia has bombed indiscriminately.
Syrian
antigovernment monitoring groups say that Russian strikes have been the
single largest cause of deaths in the war this year, and that they have
killed hundreds of civilians, hitting schools, medical facilities and
residential areas.
The
strikes came amid days of escalation along the Syria-Turkey border,
despite the United States and Russia having agreed on Thursday in Munich
to work for a cease-fire, said to be starting by the end of this week.
Doctors
Without Borders has found its hospitals increasingly coming under fire
in conflict zones. American airstrikes killed 42 people at an affiliated hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, last year. The charity’s hospitals have also been hit in a Saudi air campaign in Yemen.
Physicians for Human Rights, an organization that has been tracking attacks on health care workers and infrastructure amid the Syrian conflict,
says it has documented 336 attacks on medical sites that have killed
697 staff members, the vast majority carried out by the Syrian
government and its allies.
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