MESOP Syria Special: Russia-Regime Airstrike Destroys Aleppo Hospital / CHILDRENS DEPARTEMENT FINISHED
By Scott lucas – eaworldview
The latest Russian-regime bombing in northwest Syria has destroyed the Al-Quds Hospital in Aleppo city, causing multiple casualties.Local journalists and activists put the death toll at more than 50, including 13 women and 15 children. The casualties are likely to rise, as dozens of people were trapped under rubble. Activists said that Russian and Syrian warplanes dropped more than 250 bombs in and near Aleppo last night.
A rescuer at the scene says, “I don’t know if I’m now standing on the bodies of women and children”:More than a dozen hospitals in Aleppo city had already been closed because of the airstrikes, leaving only a few operating. Among the casualties on Wednesday night was the last pediatrician in east Aleppo, Muhammad Maaz.
In the initial months after Russia’s military intervention last autumn, Russian and Syrian warplanes hit at least 27 medical facilities, most of them in the northwest. Scores of people were killed, many of them medical staff.
See Syria Feature: “Russia and Assad Regime Deliberately and Systematically Targeted Hospitals”
A man carries a child killed last night:
Journalists from the website Vocativ toured the latest destroyed hospital last year. Dr Hamza al-Khatib recalled that a Palestinian colleague asked, “Why don’t you give the GPS coordinates of the hospital to the regime so they won’t hit it?”
Al-Khatib laughed bitterly and continued:Why would the regime be killing the children? Why would the regime be killing the women, the old people? Why would they be hitting with chemical weapons?. [Assad] has crossed all the lines.The doctor, who served two hospitals, said he would not leave:
People here don’t think about the future. We live each day by each day. At any time a rocket could come and destroy this hospital…but until then, we have patients, and we have to treat them.
It is not known if al-Khatib survived last night’s attack.Mourning one of the casualties:
Muhammad Maaz, the last pediatrician in opposition-held Aleppo, killed last night:
Dr.Ahmad abo al-Yaman, also killed:
