Aleppo's children's hospital bombed as it treats chlorine gas victims
The only children’s hospital in besieged Aleppo is out of action after being bombed as it treated victims of a chlorine gas attack, forcing staff to evacuate babies in incubators and other patients injured over days of fierce bombardment.
There are currently only four functioning hospitals left to serve around 250,000 civilians living in opposition-held areas, which have been under intense attack since the Syrian government and its Russian backers launched a new offensive on Tuesday.
There were so many airstrikes across Aleppo that the White Helmets teams which rescue survivors from rubble and put out fires said they were struggling to reach all the bomb sites. “[The city] is a mess,” said rescuer Ibrahim al-Haj.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 18 different neighbourhoods were hit dozens of times and at least four people had been killed.
The latest assault on Aleppo is part of a wider attack on Syrian rebels launched from the ground, the air and the sea, with a Russian aircraft carrier firing missiles from off the Syrian coast. It hits Aleppo just as the siege starts to bite hard.
Medical and food supplies stockpiled in preparation are now dwindling after months without being restocked and, with winter closing in, the people trapped in Aleppo face “a very bleak moment”, a senior UN humanitarian official warned.
The children’s hospital, which was also hit on Thursday, was forced to evacuate as its doctors treated victims of the chlorine attack who were struggling to breathe.
“We are moving the children’s hospital because it has been hit twice this week and is considered a full-on target,” the Independent Doctors Association said. “We took the decision to evacuate it today, to relocate the staff and patients elsewhere.”
It is believed the bomb was a vacuum missile, fired by Syrian government forces, the IDA said. Footage shot by an al-Jazeera reporter who was covering the aftermath of the chlorine gas attack showed the hospital plunged into darkness.
Doctors and nurses used torches and mobile phones as they rushed to collect babies from their incubators, wrap them in blankets and take them to a basement office, where they were lined up together for a little extra warmth. One nurse broke down sobbing on a colleague’s shoulder.
Fourteen babies were later driven through the shelling to another location so their treatment could be restarted, one of the paediatricians confirmed. “As we drove out with the ambulance, warplanes were firing and artillery were shelling,” he said by text message. “But thank God we were not hurt.”
Bombing raids on the city have frequently targeted medical facilities, which have moved underground and sometimes shifted location in response.
Source: theguardian.com