An airstrike destroyed a makeshift clinic supported by an worldwide aid group in northern Syria on Monday, killing and wounding several people, activists and aid officials said.
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Farther south, a separate attack in Syria’s Idlib province demolished a MSF-supported hospital, with a series of strikes coming in quick succession, the worldwide aid group says.
“A building that housed a hospital supported by MSF was destroyed on Monday by aircraft, presumably Russian”, said the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in a statement shortly after the attack. “The destruction of this hospital deprives about 40,000 people of healthcare in this conflict zone”.
The clinic was located in Marat al-Numan in the northern Idlib province.
Syrian troops have been advancing in the north under the cover of Russian airstrikes in recent weeks.
In Azaz, residents and a medic tell Reuters, “at least five missiles hit the hospital in the town center and a nearby school, where refugees fleeing a major Syrian army offensive were sheltering”.
Three hospitals in Syria were hit by airstrikes Monday. The offensive has been focused on Aleppo province, where troops are trying to cut rebel supply lines to Turkey and surround rebel-held parts of Aleppo city, once Syria’s largest.
No one has yet claimed responsibility for the attack.
The Observatory and other opposition activists said another hospital in Maaret al-Numan was also hit Monday, most likely by a Syrian government airstrike.
Davutoglu says “we won’t let Azaz fall”, adding that “the whole world should know this”.
Over the weekend, “Turkish forces shelled Kurdish positions in northern Syria – targeting Kurdish fighters who are seen as allies by the United States”, as Camila reported for the Two-Way.
Russian Federation has been conducting airstrikes on targets inside Syria since last September.
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Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said “we have the plan for a cessation of hostilities and I think everybody has to abide by that”.
