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.
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