- Airstrikes hit schools and hospitals in Syria
- Doctors Without Borders officials blame Russia for the bombing
- At least 50 people, including children, were killed by the airstrikes
At least 50 civilians were killed and a lot more others injured when missiles hit two schools and at least five medical facilities in rebel-held towns in northern Syria near the Turkish border, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon said.
The Syrian town of Azaz took the brunt of the airstrikes where a children’s hospital and a nearby school were hit. At least fourteen people, including children were killed when missiles slammed the school sheltering families fleeing the offensive and a children’s hospital.
“We have been moving scores of screaming children from the hospital,” Juma Rahal, a medic, said.
A town resident said another refugee camp south of Azaz and a convoy of trucks were hit by bombs.
A CBC News article dated February 15, 2016 said UN deputy spokesman Farhan Haq quoted UN secretary general Ban Ki-Moon as saying that the attacks were “blatant violations of international laws” that are further degrading an already devastated health care system and preventing access to education in Syria.”
Ban Ki-Moon said the airstrikes cast a shadow on commitments made by several nations to end hostilities in Syria within a week at a conference held in Munich last February 11.
The French President of Doctors Without Borders, also known as MSF or Medicins Sans Frontieres, blamed Russia for the airstrikes.
Mego Terzian, president of Doctors Without Borders in France, said: “The author of the strike is clearly either the government or Russia”; adding that it’s not the first time MSF facilities in Syria had been attacked.
He said missiles hit another hospital in the town of Marat Numan in Idlib province, in north western Syria.
“There were at least seven deaths among the personnel and the patients, and at least eight MSF personnel have disappeared, and we don’t know if they are alive,” Terzian said.
Massimiliano Rebaudengo, MSF’s mission chief, said the strikes appear to be “a deliberate attack on a health structure.”
“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,” he added.
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