Hospitals not spared by bombs
BEIRUT — Doctors in Syria’s rebel-controlled suburbs of Damascus said Wednesday they were unable to keep up with the staggering number of casualties amid a ferocious bombing campaign by government forces that has targeted hospitals, apartment blocks and other civilian sites. Hundreds of people have been killed or wounded in recent days.
The bombardment has forced many among the nearly 400,000 residents to sleep in basements and makeshift shelters.
Dr. Waleed Awata described a chaotic scene at the small hospital where he works as an anesthesiologist in Zamalka, one of a cluster of settlements that make up the Damascus suburbs known as eastern Ghouta. The facility, with just 17 beds, received 82 patients on Tuesday night alone, he said.
“We had to give them IVs and treat them on the floor,” the 44-year-old physician said.
The hospital was struck Tuesday by barrel bombs — crude, explosives-filled oil drums dropped from helicopters — as well as sporadic artillery fire, Awata said. Like many hospitals in the area, patients had been moved into the basement to shield them from airstrikes. No one was hurt, but the hospital’s generator, water tanks and several ambulances were damaged.
Another doctor said he was at the hospital where he works in the town of Saqba when it came under attack Tuesday. Some of the patients were killed.
“By God, I am exhausted in every sense of the word,” said the physician, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Syrian government forces supported by Russian aircraft have shown no signs of letting up their aerial and artillery assault on eastern Ghouta since they stepped up strikes late Sunday as part of a new push to recapture the territory that has been controlled by rebels since 2012.