Seven people die as mortar rounds strike hospital in north Syria

Warplanes and artillery hit opposition-held areas of north-west Syria on Sunday, killing seven civilians.

Footage published by the Syrian Civil Defence, also known as the White Helmets, showed a damaged hospital ward in the city of Atareb and rescuers carrying bloodstained patients outside.

The hospital was struck by mortars even though its operator, a partner of the International Rescue Committee, said it shared its location and co-ordinates with the Russians through a UN system.

The medical facility was so severely damaged that it can no longer be used.

Sunday’s strike was the fifth attack on healthcare infrastructure recorded so far this year. It brings the total number of such attacks to 118 since January last year, according to the IRC.

“This is systematic aggression by the regime and the Russians,” Firas Al Khalifa, spokesman for the White Helmets, told The National.

The strike was the fifth attack on healthcare infrastructure recorded so far this year

Turkey blamed Russian-backed Syrian government forces for the attack.

But Syria and Russia said they hit only militant groups and denied any indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas or deliberate attacks on hospitals and infrastructure.

Despite the Covid-19 pandemic, government and Russian air strikes continued, driving almost a million civilians from their homes in Idlib province since December, 2019.

The UN says this is the biggest single displacement in Syria’s 10-year war and has warned that a full-scale battle – promised by the regime to recapture Idlib – could result in a new “bloodbath”.

In another attack on Sunday, Russian jets hit the Bab Al Hawa area, which is on the Syrian-Turkish border.

The attack damaged a gas facility near Samada city in Idlib, a cement factory as well as several towns and cities near Syria’s border with Turkey.

It was the latest attack on the fuel plants that are an economic lifeline for a region that is home to more than four million people.