Airstrike destroys Doctors Without Borders-backed clinic in Syria
An airstrike destroyed a makeshift clinic supported by an international aid group in northern Syria on Monday, killing and wounding several people, activists and aid officials said.
Mirella Hodeib of Doctors Without Borders — also known by its French acronym MSF — said the airstrike destroyed the MSF-supported structure in the northwestern town of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province. She had no immediate word on casualties or the circumstances of the strike.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian warplanes targeted the makeshift hospital, destroying it and killing nine people. The Observatory, which tracks the casualties in Syria’s five-year civil war, said dozens were also wounded in the airstrike.
BREAKING #Syria: An MSF-supported structure in Marat Al Numan #Idlib was destroyed this morning in airstrikes. We are gathering more info.
— MSF International (@MSF) February 15, 2016
Syrian troops have been on the offensive in northern Syria under the cover of Russian airstrikes over the past week. The ground offensive has been focused on the northern province of Aleppo while Monday’s airstrike struck the clinic in the nearby Idlib province.
“The entire building has collapsed on the ground,” said opposition activist Yahya al-Sobeih, speaking by telephone from Maaret al-Numan. He added that five people were killed near the clinic and “all members of the medical team inside are believed to be dead.”
He added that paramedics and workers are now working on removing the rubble. Al-Sobeih said the four-story building that once was a cement company but had served as a makeshift clinic during the five-year civil war was hit with four missiles.
An aid official said at least one patient died and nine Syrian staffers were missing. The official, who was not authorized to talk to reporters and spoke on condition of anonymity, did not provide more details. Casualty figures are often sketchy and conflicting, and cannot be independently verified because of the inaccessibility of the conflict zones.
Meanwhile in Brussels, European Union officials on Monday called on Turkey to halt its military action in Syria after Turkish forces shelled positions held by a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia over the weekend.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said that “only a few days ago, all of us including Turkey, sitting around the table decided steps to de-escalate and have a cessation of hostilities.” She said more fighting “is obviously not what we expect.”
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