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Airstrikes hit four hospitals in Syria’s Aleppo

The bombardment killed a two-day-old baby in a children’s hospital in a besieged eastern neighbourhood of Aleppo, said the Independent Doctors Association, a group of Syrian doctors that supports clinics in the city.

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Doctors in the Syrian city of Aleppo say air raids have hit four makeshift hospitals and a blood bank in the city.

Eastern Aleppo is home to 250,000 people, and has been effectively cut off since government troops captured part of the only remaining road – the Castello Road – connecting the rebel-held area to other opposition-controlled regions in the country on July 7.

Residents have been reporting shortages of food in rebel-held parts of the city because of the siege.

The bombings reduce medical access to native residents of Atareb and displaced Syrians from Aleppo, Hama and Homs, who also reside in the city.

The strikes came from government forces, according to the AP, which cited Syrian opposition activists.

“Twenty civilians were killed and 25 others injured in the attack”, he said.

“This UNICEF-supported paediatric hospital, the only one in the city, was reportedly hit twice in less than 12 hours”, the statement said.

Many hospitals have been hit or damaged during the five-year conflict.

“The global community has shown unity of objective before and must show it again, before it’s too late and we face the prospect of losing another generation of Syrians to conflict and misery”, Stephen O’Brien, who is also the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, said in his briefing to the Security Council.

A World Health Organization report this year documented the killings of more than 1,000 people in attacks around the world aimed at health-care providers.

The airstrikes lasted until after midnight and killed five people in the Aleppo province of Syria, according to the Associated Press.

The IDA said that Children’s Hospital will not open again until it can be certain that the hospital will be under protection.

US Secretary of State John Kerry this month said that Washington and Damascus ally Moscow had reached a common understanding on the steps needed to get Syria’s peace process back on track.

Sunday saw heavy clashes in the northern town of Manbij, where the Syrian Democratic Forces alliance is pressing its campaign against ISIS, the Observatory said.

The strikes occurred hours before President Bashar al-Assad’s government announced it was intent on finding a political solution to the war in Syria and was prepared to engage in peace talks.

The two areas have been used by rebels to launch rockets into government-held districts in the city’s west.

Speaking in Geneva on Tuesday, following a closed-door meeting with U.S. and Russian officials, United Nations special envoy to Syria Staffan de Mistura said Washington and Moscow had been discussing ways to work towards the reintroduction of a ceasefire.

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The February ceasefire between the regime and non-jihadist rebels – which was brokered by the U.S. and Russian Federation – remains largely in tatters.

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