Syrian hospital strikes kill 50, cast doubt on ceasefire hopes
BEIRUT: Hopes for a ceasefire in Syria were fading on Tuesday, after dozens were killed in air strikes on hospitals that France branded war crimes and Syria’s president said implementing a truce would prove ‘difficult’.
The United Nations said nearly 50 civilians, including children, died in bombings of at least five medical facilities and two schools in northern Syria’s Aleppo and Idlib provinces.
UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said the raids violated international law and “cast a shadow” over efforts to end Syria’s five-year civil war, while France said the attacks “constitute war crimes”.
“Attacks against health facilities in Syria by the regime or its supporters are unacceptable and must stop immediately,” said French Foreign Minister JeanMarc Ayrault.
The United States, which like the UN did not identify who carried out the air strikes, said two civilian hospitals were hit in northern Syria: one run run by medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) and another in rebel-held Azaz city.
The region around Syria’s second city of Aleppo has been the target of a major offensive by Syrian government troops, backed by Russian warplanes, which has sent tens of thousands fleeing to the Turkish border.
“That the Assad regime and its supporters would continue these attacks... casts 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,” the State Department said.
MSF confirmed a hospital supported by the charity was hit
Attacks against health facilities in Syria by the regime or its supporters are unacceptable and must stop immediately.
in Idlib, northwest Syria, and said seven people were killed and at least eight were missing, presumed dead.
But Syria’s ambassador to Moscow, Riad Haddad, said the hospital had been targeted by a US raid.
“American warplanes destroyed it. Russian warplanes had nothing to do with any of it – the information that has been gathered will completely back that up,” he told Russian state television channel Rossiya 24.
The heated words cast fresh doubt on a days-old deal to enforce a nationwide ceasefire later this week, with Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad saying it would be “difficult” to implement.
“They are saying they want a ceasefire in a week. Who is capable of gathering all the conditions and requirements in a week? No one,” Assad said in televised remarks.
Seeking to keep alive the deal for a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria clinched in Munich, Germany, last week, the UN’s envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, arrived in Damascus on Monday.
Kurdish fighters in northern Syria meanwhile captured a key town, despite Turkey resuming shelling in several parts of Aleppo, alarmed by their recent advances against mostly Islamist rebels.
Ankara accuses the Kurdish forces of ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) that has waged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey.
Britain-based monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least two children died in Monday’s shelling and an AFP journalist on the border said Turkish howitzers fired for around 20 minutes from the Akcabaglar region.
Nonetheless, the coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured the town of Tal Rifaat from mostly Islamist rebels, the Observatory said. — AFP
Jean-Marc Ayrault, French Foreign Minister