More Aleppo hospitals crippled

Medics inspect the damage outside a field hospital in the rebel-held al-Maadi neighbourhood. Photo: Reuters
Medics inspect the damage outside a field hospital in the rebel-held al-Maadi neighbourhood. Photo: Reuters

Russian or Syrian warplanes have knocked two hospitals out of service in the besieged rebel sector of Aleppo, and ground forces intensified an assault in a battle which the United Nations said had made the city worse than a slaughterhouse.

Two patients died in one of the hospitals on Wednesday and other shelling killed six residents queuing for bread under a siege that has trapped 250,000 people with food running out.

The latest attack comes as Russia says it was ready to work with the United States on Syria and would soon send experts to Geneva for talks with American counterparts. The US earlier threatened to halt its diplomacy with Russia on Syria and it said it held Russia accountable for the use of incendiary bombs on Aleppo.

The week-old assault, which could herald a turning point in the war, has already killed hundreds of people, with bunker-busting bombs bringing down buildings on residents huddled inside.

Only about 30 doctors are believed to be left inside the besieged zone, coping with hundreds of wounded a day.

"The warplane flew over us and directly started dropping its missiles ... at around 4am," Mohammad Abu Rajab, a radiologist at the M10 hospital, the largest trauma hospital in the city's rebel-held sector, told Reuters. "Rubble fell in on the patients in the intensive care unit."

M10 hospital workers said oxygen and power generators were destroyed and patients were transferred to another hospital.

Photographs sent to Reuters by a hospital worker at the facility showed damaged storage tanks, a rubble strewn area, and the collapsed roof of what he said was a power facility.

There were no initial reports of casualties there, but medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said two patients had been killed at the other hospital, in shelling which took it out of service as well, leaving east Aleppo with only seven doctors in a position to undertake surgery.

"And this comes at a time when east Aleppo has been under siege since July and is suffering the bloodiest indiscriminate bombing since the beginning of the war," MSF's Syria head Carlos Francisco said.

The government of President Bashar al-Assad, backed by Russian air power, Iranian ground forces and Shi'ite militia fighters from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon, has launched a massive assault to crush the rebels' last major urban stronghold.

Syria's largest city before the five-year war, Aleppo has been divided for years between government and rebel zones, and would be the biggest strategic prize of the war for Assad and his allies.

Taking full control of the city would restore near full government rule over the most important cities of western Syria, where nearly all of the population lived before the start of a conflict that has since made half of Syrians homeless, caused a refugee crisis and contributed to the rise of Islamic State.

UNPRECEDENTED BOMBING

The offensive began with unprecedentedly fierce bombing last week, followed by a ground campaign this week, burying a ceasefire that had been the culmination of months of diplomacy between Washington and Moscow.

Washington says Moscow and Damascus are guilty of war crimes for targetting civilians, hospitals, rescue workers and aid deliveries, to break the will of residents and force them to surrender. Syria and Russia say they target only militants.

Asked by a reporter at the United Nations whether Syria had bombed the two hospitals hit on Wednesday, the Syrian ambassador to the world body, Bashar Ja'afari, appeared to laugh.

The Syrian army said a Nusra Front position had been destroyed in Aleppo's old quarter, and other militant-held areas targeted in "concentrated air strikes" near the city.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said those using "ever more destructive weapons" were committing war crimes. Describing the situation in Aleppo, he said: "This is worse. Even a slaughterhouse is more humane."

Add a Comment