Barrel bombs hit Aleppo hospital again
The largest hospital in rebel-held east Aleppo was bombed yesterday for the second time in days as Syrian government forces pressed a Russian-backed offensive to retake the entire city.
The offensive, announced on September 22, has seen dozens of civilians killed and residential buildings flattened in the east, where an estimated 250,000 people live under government siege.
The Doctors Without Borders (MSF) medical charity warned Friday that "bombs are raining" over the city, turning east Aleppo into "a giant kill box."
As the situation for civilians grows increasingly dire, the biggest hospital in east Aleppo was hit by two barrel bombs yesterday, the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) medical, organisation that supports it said.
M10 had already been hit on Wednesday along with the second-largest hospital in the area, known as M2, in what UN chief Ban Ki-moon denounced as "war crimes."
After the government launched its offensive last month, more than 220 people have been killed by bombardment on Aleppo's east, including six children and 12 other civilians on Friday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
In west Aleppo, rebel rocket fire killed 15 civilians and wounded 40 on Friday, state television reported. The SANA official news agency said 13 people were wounded yesterday in the western Al-Midan neighbourhood, also by rebel shellfire.
The battle for Aleppo has sparked some of the most brutal violence since the March 2011 beginning of Syria's conflict, which has killed more than 300,000 people and displaced over half the population.
Diplomatic efforts to put an end to the fighting across the country have all but collapsed.
Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Friday accused Washington of protecting jihadist groups in its effort to overthrow Assad.
British Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson said Russia was in danger of becoming "a pariah nation" and the attacks in Aleppo were "unquestionably a war crime".
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