All hospitals in Syria’s besieged rebel-held eastern city of Aleppo are out of service after days of heavy airstrikes, the provincial health directorate and the WHO said, although the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said some were still functioning.
US National Security Adviser Susan Rice said the US condemned “in the strongest terms” the latest airstrikes against hospitals and urged Russia, an ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, to take steps to halt the violence.
Intense airstrikes have battered the eastern part of the city since Tuesday last week, when the Syrian army and its allies resumed operations after a pause lasting weeks. They launched ground attacks against insurgent positions on Friday.
Photo: Reuters
The observatory said 48 people, including at least five children, had been killed in eastern Aleppo on Saturday by dozens of airstrikes and barrel bombs and dozens of artillery rounds.
That brings the number of people killed by the increased bombardment of Aleppo and the surrounding countryside over the past five days to about 180, including 97 in the city’s besieged eastern sector, the observatory added.
Warplanes, artillery and helicopters continued bombarding eastern Aleppo on Saturday, hitting many of its densely populated residential districts, the observatory said.
There were intense clashes in the Bustan al-Basha district, it added.
“This destruction of infrastructure essential to life leaves the besieged, resolute people, including all children and elderly men and women, without any health facilities offering life-saving treatment ... leaving them to die,” Aleppo’s health directorate said in a statement sent to reporters late on Friday by an opposition official.
Elizabeth Hoff, who is the WHO representative in Syria, on Saturday said that a UN-led group of aid agencies based over the border in Turkey “confirmed today that all hospitals in eastern Aleppo are out of service.”
The observatory said some hospitals were still operating in besieged parts of Aleppo, but said many residents were frightened to use them because of the heavy shelling.
Medical sources, residents and rebels in eastern Aleppo say hospitals have been damaged by airstrikes and helicopter barrel bombs in recent days, including direct hits on the buildings.
“The United States again joins our partners ... in demanding the immediate cessation of these bombardments and calling on Russia to immediately de-escalate violence and facilitate humanitarian aid and access for the Syrian people,” Rice said in a statement.
However, with the US awaiting the inauguration in late January of US president-elect Donald Trump, who has been critical of Washington’s Syria policy without laying out detailed plans himself, diplomatic efforts appear stalled.
UN and Arab League Envoy to Syria Staffan De Mistura was yesterday expected to meet Syrian Minister of Foreign Affairs and Expatriates Walid al-Muallem in Damascus after recent talks in Turkey and Iran, another diplomat said.
“He will push on Aleppo, perhaps on a ceasefire, but on the political file there won’t be anything until [UN secretary-general-designate Antonio] Guterres is in office,” the diplomat said.
ROCKY RELATIONS: The figures on residents come as Chinese tourist numbers drop following Beijing’s warnings to avoid traveling to Japan The number of Chinese residents in Japan has continued to rise, even as ties between the two countries have become increasingly fractious, data released on Friday showed. As of the end of December last year, the number of Chinese residents had increased by 6.5 percent from the previous year to 930,428. Chinese people accounted for 22.6 percent of all foreign residents in Japan, making them by far the largest group, Japanese Ministry of Justice data showed. Beijing has criticized Tokyo in increasingly strident terms since Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi last year suggested that a military conflict around Taiwan could
A pro-Iran hacking group claimed to breach FBI Director Kash Patel’s personal e-mail inbox and posted some of the contents online. The e-mails provided by the hacking group include travel details, correspondence with leasing agents in Washington and global entry, and loyalty account numbers. The e-mail address the hackers claim to have compromised has been previously tied to Patel’s personal details, and the leaked e-mails contain photos of Patel and others, in addition to correspondence with family members and colleagues. “The FBI is aware of malicious actors targeting Director Patel’s personal email information,” the agency said in a statement on
RIVALRY: ‘We know that these are merely symbolic investigations initiated by China, which is in fact the world’s most profligate disrupter of supply chains,’ a US official said China has started a pair of investigations into US trade practices, retaliating against similar probes by US President Donald Trump’s administration as the superpowers stake out positions before an expected presidential summit in May. The move, announced by the Chinese Ministry of Commerce on Friday, is a direct mirror of steps Trump took to revive his tariff agenda after the US Supreme Court last month struck down some of his duties. “China expresses its strong dissatisfaction and firm opposition to these actions,” a ministry spokesperson said in a statement, referring to the so-called Section 301 investigations initiated on March 11.
When a hiker fell from a 55m waterfall in wild New Zealand bush, rescuers were forced to evacuate the badly hurt woman without her dog, which could not be found. After strangers raised thousands of dollars for a search, border collie Molly was flown to safety by a helicopter pilot who was determined to reunite the pet and the owner. A week earlier, an emergency rescue helicopter found the woman with bruises and lacerations after a fall at a rocky spot at the waterfall on the South Island’s West Coast. She was airlifted on March 24, but they were forced to
RSS