Hospital hit as Assad forces step up attacks on Aleppo
aleppo — Air strikes and ferocious artillery bombardment pounded rebel-held east Aleppo on Friday as an escalating military offensive underscored the Syrian government’s determination to take full control of the divided city.
Streets were deserted and residents took refuge indoors as the government unleashed a fourth straight day of bombardment on opposition-controlled parts of Aleppo, Syria’s second city.
The artillery fire was the most intense in east Aleppo in around two years, according to a correspondent there, while rescue workers said it was too dangerous to move around bomb-scarred neighbourhoods.
“I have never heard such intense artillery bombardments,” said Najib Fakhoury, head of the White Helmets volunteer rescue group in the rebel-held Ansari district.
“Earlier, we received a call for help to extinguish a fire,” he said. “But we cannot go because the shells are falling on the streets”.
Barrel bombs and other ordnance rained down until midnight only to resume in the early hours, a correspondent reported.
Dozens of shells and rockets were heard falling on several east Aleppo districts, causing the ground to shake. Government helicopters dropped barrel bombs.
Intensive bombings hit an area housing several hospitals and sending the chief of a paediatrics clinic in a frantic search for a place to move his young patients.
Earlier on Friday, air strikes on a village in the rural Aleppo province killed seven members of the same family, including four children, opposition activists said.
So far, more than 100 people have been killed across northern Syria since Tuesday.
A physician who identified himself as Dr Hatem, the head of the only paediatric hospital remaining in besieged rebel-held part of Aleppo, said his facility has been targeted once more on Friday, causing damages to its exterior.
The hospital was also hit during a wave of air strikes on the complex housing four hospitals on Wednesday. “Now it is being bombed ... I am sorry ... I have to go to transfer the children” to a safe area, he said in a text message.
Another Aleppo hospital in a different neighbourhood also came under intense bombing late Thursday, he said, though no one was wounded.
I have never heard such intense artillery bombardments. We received a call for help to extinguish a fire. but we cannot go because the shells are falling on the streets
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Najib Fakhoury, Head of the White Helmets volunteers
Many hospitals and clinics in the besieged area have moved their operations underground after months of relentless bombings and air strikes.
The city of Aleppo, once Syria’s commercial hub, has been divided since 2012, with the eastern half in rebel hands and the western half controlled by government forces.
Ibrahim Al Haj, a member of the Syria Civil Defence rescuers in Aleppo said the city “is a mess”. The group of rescuers and first responders said they were struggling to put out fires set off by the bombings in at least 10 different areas of eastern Aleppo. — AFP, AP