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April 29, 2016

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Dozens killed in airstrikes on Syria

Source: Agencies | April 29, 2016, Friday | Print Edition

AIRSTRIKES killed dozens of people in rebel-held areas of Syria’s Aleppo yesterday, the day after a hospital was destroyed with children and doctors among the dead.

The United Nations called on Moscow and Washington to salvage a “barely-alive” cease-fire.

The city of Aleppo is at the epicenter of a military escalation that has undermined peace talks in Geneva to end the five-year-old war and UN envoy Stefan de Mistura appealed to the presidents of the United States and Russia to intervene.

Six days of airstrikes and rebel shelling in the city, which is split between government forces and rebels, have killed some 200 people, two-thirds of them on the opposition side, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

“The catastrophic deterioration in Aleppo over the past 24-48 hours” has jeopardized the aid lifeline that delivers supplies to millions of Syrians, said Jan Egeland, chairman of the UN humanitarian task force. “I could not in any way express how high the stakes are for the next hours and days.”

The Geneva talks aim to end a war that has killed more than 250,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis, allowed for the rise of Islamic State and drawn in regional and major powers but the negotiations have all but failed and a truce to allow them to take place has collapsed.

Winding up the Geneva talks, de Mistura said he aimed to resume them in May, but gave no date.

“Wherever you are, you hear explosions of mortars, shelling and planes flying over,” Valter Gros, who heads the International Committee of the Red Cross Aleppo office, said. “There is no neighborhood of the city that hasn’t been hit. People are living on the edge. Everyone here fears for their lives and nobody knows what is coming next,” he said.

A Syrian military source said government planes had not been in areas where air raids were reported. Syria’s army denied reports that the Syrian air force targeted the hospital.

The Russian defense ministry, whose airstrikes have swung the war in favor of President Bashar Assad, could not immediately be reached for comment. Russia has previously denied hitting civilian targets in Syria.

The British-based Observatory said 31 people were killed as a result of airstrikes on several areas of opposition-held Aleppo yesterday.

In addition, it said at least 27 people were killed in the airstrike that struck the hospital late on Wednesday. Rescue workers put the toll higher.

In government-held areas, rebel mortar shelling killed at least 14 people, the Observatory and Syria’s state news agency SANA reported.

The bombed al-Quds hospital was supported by international medical charity Doctors Without Borders, which said it was destroyed after being hit by a direct airstrike that killed at least three doctors.

“This devastating attack has destroyed a vital hospital in Aleppo, and the main referral center for pediatric care in the area,” said a spokesman.

Red Cross spokesman Ewan Watson told reporters: “It is unacceptable, any attack on hospitals is a war crime. But it is up to an investigator and it is for a court to take that decision on whether it is a war crime or not.”

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