Investigation says U.N. system for identifying hospitals fatally flawed

A United Nations system to prevent attacks on hospitals and other humanitarian sites in insurgent-held areas of Syria has been ignored by Russian and Syrian forces and marred by internal errors, a New York Times investigation found. The repeated bombing and shelling of these sites has led relief group leaders to criticize the U.N. over the system that is meant to provide warring parties with precise locations of humanitarian sites that under international law are exempt from attack. Some of these groups have described the system of identifying and sharing information on these sites as effectively useless. A new offensive by Syrian and Russian forces that began in late December has devastated what remains of several towns in northwestern Syria and caused tens of thousands of civilians to flee.