Air strikes hit hospitals, camps in northwest Syria, relief effort overwhelmed - U.N.
By Eric Knecht and Stephanie
Nebehay
19 hrs ago
©
Getty Images (Photo by Delil
Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images)
Government
air strikes have hit hospitals and refugee camps in northwest Syria
and killed about 300 civilians as President Bashar al-Assad's
forces press an assault against the last rebel stronghold, the
United Nations said on Tuesday.
U.N.
officials said relief agencies were overwhelmed by the humanitarian
crisis as nearly one million civilians, most of them women and
children, had fled towards the Turkish border in bitter winter
conditions to escape the onslaught.
"Civilians
fleeing the fighting are being squeezed into areas without safe
shelter that are shrinking in size by the hour. And still they are
bombed. They simply have nowhere to go," U.N. human rights
chief Michelle Bachelet said.
Syrian
and Russian warplanes meanwhile kept up raids on the town of Darat
Izza in Aleppo province on Tuesday, witnesses said, a day after two
hospitals there were badly damaged.
At
Al Kinana Hospital, blown-out walls and dust-covered medical cables
and supplies were strewn about the hospital after two staff were
wounded on Monday, witnesses said.
Ankara
said talks with Moscow on Idlib were "not satisfactory"
and Turkey would deploy more troops to the region.
Turkish
and Russian officials held a second day of talks in Moscow with no
apparent agreement on Idlib, where the latest push by
Russian-backed Syrian government forces has killed several Turkish
troops.
Russia
said both sides restated their commitment to existing agreements
aimed at reducing tension in Idlib. A statement did not mention
Turkey's demand for Syrian government forces to pull back.
Turkey
says it cannot cope with a new refugee influx in addition to the
3.6 million Syrian refugees already stranded inside its borders.
Appearing
on national television on Monday, Assad said the rapid military
gains presaged the eventual defeat of the nine-year-old insurgency
against him although it could still take time. The rebel factions
include Turkish-backed rebels and jihadist militants.
POSSIBLE
WAR CRIMES
U.N.
human rights spokesman Rupert Colville, asked if Syria and Russia
were deliberately targeting civilians and protected buildings,
said: "The sheer quantity of attacks on hospitals, medical
facilities, and schools would suggest they cannot all be
accidental."
The
attacks could constitute war crimes, Colville told a briefing in
Geneva.
The
U.N. human rights office said it had recorded 299 civilian deaths
since Jan. 1, about 93% caused by the Syrian government and its
allies.
The
swift advance of government troops, backed by Russian air strikes,
through northwest Syria has caused the biggest displacement of the
war as people flee towards a shrinking pocket near the Turkish
frontier where insurgents hold their last strongholds.
A
U.N. spokesman, David Swanson, said close to 900,000 people have
fled conflict zones in Idlib province and western Aleppo since
December, more than 80% of them women and children.
Many
have been unable to find shelter and are sleeping outside in
freezing temperatures, burning plastic to stay warm and at risk of
disease and death.
"Only
half of all the health facilities in northwest are still
functioning now," Swanson said.
Hurras
Network, a Save the Children partner in Idlib, said seven children
including a seven-month-old baby had died from freezing
temperatures and bleak conditions in displaced persons camps.
About
525,000 children are among those trapped, the U.N. Children's Fund
(UNICEF) said.
FULL
CONTROL
The
Syrian army said on Monday it had taken full control of dozens of
towns in the Aleppo countryside.
The
M5 highway linking Damascus to Aleppo, the focus of recent
fighting, was re-opened to civilian traffic on Tuesday after
government forces recaptured it last week, the Syrian Observatory
war monitoring group reported.
The
opposition said air strikes in southern areas of Idlib province had
left dozens of towns and villages in ruins in what it called a
"scorched earth policy."
The
Russian and Turkish delegations meeting in Moscow were trying to
reconcile their differences over Idlib, which have raised questions
over the durability of their cooperation.
Turkey
has sent thousands of troops and convoys of military equipment to
reinforce its observation posts in Idlib, established under a 2018
de-escalation agreement with Russia.
Moscow
has accused Turkey of flouting their agreements and failing to rein
in militants it said were attacking Syrian and Russian forces.
In
one positive note, Turkish and Russian troops have restarted joint
patrols near the border that had been halted since October, a
Russian defense ministry official said.
Tedros
Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the World Health
Organization, said the WHO was sending essential medicines and
supplies across the border, including trauma kits for Idlib.
(Reporting
by Khalil Ashawi, Stephanie Nebehay, Eric Knecht, Ellen Francis,
Ezgi Erkoyun, Ece Toksabay and Polina Devitt; Editing by Angus
MacSwan and Giles Elgood)
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