The last 10 days have been deadly in Aleppo. Syrian forces and Russia are intensifying their bombings and hundreds of people have been killed. Hospitals, clinics, ambulances, medical staff and rescue teams have been hit by airstrikes and the civilian death toll climbed. Last week a massive bombing of a United Nations humanitarian aid convoy killed one aid worker and approximately 20 civilians, and destroyed half of the aid trucks.
U.N. Security Council held a crisis meeting last Sunday to discuss the Syrian government’s offensive on Aleppo. The US Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power told the Security Council:
What Russia is sponsoring and doing is not counter-terrorism, it is barbarism (…) Instead of pursuing peace, Russia and Assad make war. Instead of helping get life-saving aid to civilians, Russia and Assad are bombing the humanitarian convoys, hospitals and first responders who are trying desperately to keep people alive
Samantha Power accused Russia of engaging in barbarism in Syria, and two hospitals in east Aleppo have been severely damaged in Tuesday night’s. Carlos Francisco, MSF’s head of mission for Syria declared:
According to different medical sources, there are only seven surgical doctors left in the area, serving an estimated population of 250,000 (…) And this comes at a time when east Aleppo has been under siege since July and is suffering the bloodiest indiscriminate bombing since the beginning of the war. We don’t know how to say it anymore: This has to stop.
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon warned on Wednesday that attacks on medical facilities were war crimes. He called on the Security Council to take decisive steps to end such obvious war crimes and hold the perpetrators accountable.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W9sWyxBajW8
The situation is horrific, people are dying because health services don’t have the capacity to treat them. According to MSF, out of the eight hospitals left in east Aleppo, there were four with surgical capacity and now there are only two left. Physicians for Human Rights group indicated that 95 percent of medical workers in Aleppo before the war have been killed, detained, or fled the fighting. According to UNICEF, there were only 30 doctors left in eastern Aleppo for a population of 250,000 – 100,000 of those children.
As Syrian government forces backed by Russian warplanes are pursuing onslaught on rebel-held parts of Aleppo, medical supplies and food have run out and the suffering continues…
