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| Turkish forces' armoured vehicles patrol at the southeastern town of Nusaybin, Turkey, near the border with Syria, where Turkish security forces are battling militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers, Party or PKK, Sunday, Feb. 14, 2016, a day after Turkish media reports said a police officer was injured in a clash. The private Dogan news agency said the militants on Saturday detonated an explosive device in the town as a military vehicle was passing by, but no one injured. A second bomb was defused in a controlled explosion. |
BEIRUT
(AP) -- Airstrikes blamed on Russia hit at least two hospitals and a
school in northern Syria on Monday, killing and wounding dozens of
civilians and further dimming hopes for a temporary truce, as government
troops backed by Russian warplanes pressed a major offensive north of
Aleppo.
The raids came days after Russia and
other world powers agreed to bring about a pause in fighting that would
allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid and the revival of peace
talks.
The projected truce agreed on Friday in Munich was to begin in a week, but there was no sign that would happen.
On
Monday, Syrian state TV reported that pro-government forces have
entered the northern town of Tel Rifaat, where they were fighting
"fierce battles" against insurgents. Tel Rifaat is a major stronghold of
militants fighting to overthrow President Bashar Assad.
Capturing Tel Rifaat would bring government forces closer to their target of Azaz, near the Turkish border.
In
Idlib province, an airstrike destroyed a makeshift clinic supported by
Doctors Without Borders. The international charity, also known by its
French acronym MSF, said the hospital in the town of Maaret al-Numan was
hit four times in attacks that were minutes apart. It said seven people
were killed and eight others were "missing, presumed dead."
"The
destruction of the hospital leaves the local population of around
40,000 people without access to medical services in an active zone of
conflict," said MSF mission chief Massimiliano Rebaudengo.
The
Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian
warplanes targeted the hospital, destroying it and killing nine people.
The opposition group, which tracks both sides of the conflict through
sources on the ground, said dozens were wounded in the attack.
"The
entire building has collapsed on the ground," said opposition activist
Yahya al-Sobeih, speaking by phone from Maaret al-Numan. He said five
people were killed near the MSF clinic and "all members of the medical
team inside are believed to be dead."
The
Observatory and other opposition activists said another hospital in
Maaret al-Numan was also hit Monday, most likely by a Syrian government
airstrike.
In the neighboring Aleppo province,
a missile struck a children's hospital in the town of Azaz, killing
five people, including three children and a pregnant woman, according to
the Observatory. A third air raid hit a school in a nearby village,
killing seven and wounding others.
U.N.
Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said close to 50 civilians were killed and
many more wounded in missile attacks on at least five medical
facilities and two schools in northern Syria.
Ban
called the attacks "blatant violations of international laws" that "are
further degrading an already devastated health care system and
preventing access to education in Syria," according to U.N. deputy
spokesman Farhan Haq.
Activists posted amateur
video that showed civil defense workers pulling bodies from the rubble
of the MSF-supported structure in Idlib, which collapsed into a heap of
rubble and was tilting to one side.
Others
showed a huge crater next to a building that purportedly housed the
child and maternal hospital in Azaz. Incubators could be seen in a ward
littered with broken glass and toppled medical equipment.
Russia
says its airstrikes are targeting militants and denies hitting
hospitals or civilians. But rights groups and activists have repeatedly
accused Moscow of killing civilians.
Those
accusations have increased recently as Russia intensified its airstrikes
to provide cover to Syrian troops advancing in the north. Troops are
trying to cut rebel supply lines to Turkey and surround rebel-held parts
of Aleppo city, once Syria's largest.
Daragh
McDowell, the head Russia analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a British risk
analysis firm, said Russian and Syrian tactics "strongly suggest a
deliberate effort to further exacerbate the refugee crisis, as a means
of destabilizing Europe and pressuring the West to agree to a settlement
in Syria on Moscow and Damascus' terms."
Abdulrahman
Al-Hassan, chief liaison officer at the Syrian Civil Defense, a group
of first responders known as the "White Helmets," said the women's
hospital in Azaz was hit by two surface-to-surface missiles. He said
some 10 people were killed and many were wounded.
"We
think it is Russia because the photos of the missiles have Russian
language (and) because we haven't seen this kind (of missile) before the
Russian intervention," he said.
Russia has been a key ally of Assad throughout the five-year uprising and civil war, and began launching airstrikes on Sept. 30.
In
Turkey, the private Dogan news agency reported that more than 30 of
those wounded in Russian airstrikes in Azaz, primarily children, were
transferred to a hospital in southern Turkey. It showed footage of
ambulances arriving and medics unloading children on stretchers.
"They hit the school, they hit the school," wailed a Syrian woman who was unloaded from an ambulance onto a wheelchair.
The
U.S. State Department condemned the airstrikes, saying they cast doubt
on "Russia's willingness and/or ability to help bring to a stop the
continued brutality of the Assad regime against its own people."
In
Brussels, European Union officials had earlier 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."
Dutch
Foreign Minister Bert Koenders, whose country holds the EU's rotating
presidency, said "we have the plan for a cessation of hostilities and I
think everybody has to abide by that."
The U.N.'s special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, arrived in Damascus on Monday for talks with Syrian officials.
