The group is engaged in a variety of local alliances with other rebel groups the USA and its Arab allies want shielded by the cessation of hostilities.
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Even a 2-day-old baby in a pediatric hospital is not safe in Aleppo.
The U.N. humanitarian chief is urgently calling for a weekly 48-hour “humanitarian pause” in the eastern part of Aleppo city in Syria where all road access is blocked by fighting and between 250,000 and 275,000 people are trapped. The SOHR attributed the attack to Russian bombers.
The raids hit four makeshift hospitals in the besieged city, as well as a fifth in the nearby town of Atareb, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Sunday. Photo courtesy of The White Helmets.
Three women were among those killed in the attack, the latest in an endless cycle of mortar shelling by rebels against government-controlled areas in Aleppo, the source said on condition of anonymity.
“The other hospitals and the blood bank were in an area where there were airstrikes rather than them been apparently directly targeted”.
An estimated 300,000 people are estimated to live in these areas under siege, leading to fears about their welfare and the general humanitarian situation. “This is risky because of the constant bombardment”. “It tries to eliminate and destroy medical services”, Dr. Naser, a paediatricians working in the Children’s Hospital said in a statement.
The newborn boy was killed when his oxygen supply was cut off after the raid in the early hours of Sunday morning, AFP reported.
“We are still accepting emergency cases”, says al-Haj.
Pro-regime media has not commented on Saturday’s strikes on Aleppo’s hospitals. Assad hopes to bleed rebels of any support, believing that by frequently targeting humanitarian, medical, and other aid facilities he can accelerate their surrender.
Worse still, a severe shortage of medicines and medical staff has forced many hospitals in Aleppo to suspend operation.
“Only one of the hospitals has suffered a direct hit”, said Bernard Smith, an Al-Jazeera reporter stationed along the Turkey-Syria border, also noting that some of the facilities were still functional.
In recent weeks, regime advances have severed the only remaining route into the rebel-held eastern neighbourhoods, effectively placing them under siege.
He stressed the importance of rebuilding the momentum created in the first half of the year, in particular by the humanitarian task force of the International Syria Support Group (ISSG) – consisting of the United Nations, the Arab League, the European Union and 18 countries that have been working on a way forward since late last year.
The strategy of attrition, which the regime openly calls “kneel or starve”, has arrived in Aleppo, and the results are grim.
“There are only 30 doctors left in the rebel-held Aleppo”, says Ibrahim, who has been in Aleppo since the start of the war.
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“With all of the airstrikes, they just can’t cope anymore”.
