An aerial attack which partially destroyed a maternity hospital in rural Idlib province in northwest Syria this afternoon appears to be part of a despicable pattern of unlawful attacks deliberately targeting medical facilities, said Amnesty International.
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“Save the Children supported maternity hospital in #Idlib bombed, casualties reported – numbers unconfirmed”, it tweeted.
The hospital is the biggest in the area, carrying out more than 300 deliveries a month and assisting over 1,350 women, according to Save the Children.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Friday that the militants retook the village of al-Bouweir from the Syrian Democratic Forces on Thursday.
It released this footage on Twitter of the aftermath of the bombing. The number of casualties is unclear at this point.
According to reporting by Reuters, the United Kingdom -based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the hit on the medical facility, as well as “a civil defense building”. “He went to visit his wife who had just given birth when the bombing happened”, said the monitoring group’s head, Rami Abdel Rahman.
The hospital opened in 2014 and has an on-call paediatrician and six incubators for premature babies.
Last weekend four hospitals were hit in strikes around Aleppo.
It is not known whether the strike was carried out by regime forces or their Russian allies.
At least two people feared dead and “lots of patients and staff” are injured in the attack – which is the latest on medical facilities in the war-torn country.
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“We need an end to the indiscriminate attacks on civilians and immediate and unfettered access for humanitarian aid”.
