Two Aleppo hospitals bombed out of service in 'catastrophic' airstrikes
"Syria’s Paradox: Why the War Only Ever Seems to Get Worse"
Doctors are overwhelmed after attacks, as Unicef counts 96 children killed and 223 injured in city since Friday
Medics inspect the damage outside a field hospital in the rebel-held al-Maadi neighbourhood of Aleppo. Photograph: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters
Kareem Shaheen in Beirut and Julian Borger
Thursday 29 September 2016 03.57 AEST Last modified on Thursday 29 September 2016 09.45 AEST
Airstrikes by forces loyal to the Syrian government have bombed out of service the two largest hospitals in besieged eastern Aleppo, which serve a quarter of a million civilians, in what doctors have described as a catastrophic campaign that is testing the conscience of the world.
“You cannot imagine what we see every day: children who are coming to us as body parts. We collect the body parts and wrap them in shrouds and bury them,” said Bara’a, a nurse at one of the affected hospitals, who was present during the bombings.
“Tell the world to wake up, to wake their consciences. Where are you? When Palestine was being destroyed everyone got involved. Why are Syria’s children being forgotten? Nobody is doing anything to reduce this suffering.”
The M2 and M10 hospitals, codenames used by local doctors to obscure the locations of the facilities, were hit at about 4am, and the former again at about 10am, by airstrikes and artillery shells. This is the latest development in a week-long offensive that one health official has described as “catastrophic and unprecedented in modern history”.
-- "People here now consider themselves dead and are just counting the days" Anwar Shehade, anesthesiologist --
The latest assault on Syria’s doctors was only the most recent outrage in a campaign NGOs describe as systematic and deliberate. It came on the heels of a violent week in Aleppo, during which nearly 400 people have been killed and hundreds more injured, as forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad’s regime prepare a ground offensive .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/27/syrian-troops-launch-ground-offensive-against-aleppo-rebels .. to reclaim the opposition-held east of the city.
“Those using ever more destructive weapons know exactly they are doing. They know they are committing war crimes,” said Ban, who ends his 10 years in the post in December. “Imagine the destruction. People with their limbs blown off, children in terrible pain with no relief... Imagine a slaughterhouse. This is worse. Even a slaughterhouse is more humane.”
Zaher Sahloul, a senior adviser for the Syrian American Medical Society, which supports both of the hospitals bombed overnight, said: “It is extermination of a major city by starving and killing its 85,000 children using all modern and middle ages weaponries.”
In a statement, Unicef said at least 96 children had been killed and 223 injured in eastern Aleppo since Friday after a ceasefire brokered by Washington and Moscow broke down in mutual recrimination.
“The children of Aleppo are trapped in a living nightmare,” said the Unicef deputy chief, Justin Forsyth. “There are no words left to describe the suffering they are experiencing.”
Health workers said the 4am attacks at the M2 killed two staff members and a civilian whose heart was pierced by shrapnel. The hospital’s intensive care unit was extensively damaged, as were power generators, fuel storage and water tanks that kept the hospital running. Damage was also sustained by an ambulance that had replaced another that was destroyed in a bombing two days ago.
Medics took shelter in the hospital basement during the mid-morning attack, sending calls for aid as they hid until government planes had retreated.
“If the hospital falls on top of us, come pull us out from under the rubble but do not take pictures,” said Bara’a, the M2 nurse, in a message from the shelter to a discussion group of journalists and doctors in eastern Aleppo. “Please don’t take pictures; we won’t gain anything from it and our dignity is too precious.”
“People here now consider themselves dead and are just counting the days,” said Anwar Shehade, an anaesthetist. “I am lucky if I survive until the night, but I am sure that I will die, if not today then tomorrow for sure.”
Doctors say medicine is running out and hospitals are overwhelmed by the number of wounded, which civil defence rescue groups estimated at 1,700 people. At the M2 hospital, a fresh wave of victims in the late afternoon had to be sent to another hospital farther away because they could only provide them with basic first aid.
“These bombings are systematic and direct against hospitals that are serving besieged Aleppo,” said Mohammad Abu Rajab, a doctor at the M2. “Today we are saddened. Grief has filled the faces of all the doctors because we can no longer treat these patients. We pray to God that we are able to work again.”
Joanne Liu, the head of Médecins Sans Frontières .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/medecins-sans-frontieres , which supports both hospitals, described the joint Russian and Syrian aerial campaign against Aleppo as a sign of the new limitless nature of warfare.
-- "I just want the world to know that in here are people calling for help" Bara’a, nurse --
“The conduct of war today is ever boundless. It is a race to the bottom,” she said at a UN security council session. “The unremitting assault on Aleppo by Russian and Syrian forces over recent days is certainly testament to that.”
In a week of what residents have described as the worst airstrike campaign since the start of the civil war in Syria .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/syria , forces loyal to Assad have begun the early stages of a ground offensive aimed at reclaiming eastern Aleppo, which has been under opposition control since 2012.
A victory in Aleppo would allow Assad to lay claim to most of Syria’s heavily populated urban centres, while relegating the rebellion to a rural insurgency.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, said on Wednesday that Washington would no longer negotiate with Moscow if it did not stop the bombardment.
The state department said: “He informed the [Russian] foreign minister that the United States is making preparations to suspend US-Russia bilateral engagement on Syria – including on the establishment of the joint implementation centre – unless Russia .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia .. takes immediate steps to end the assault on Aleppo and restore the cessation of hostilities.”
However, there has been no significant bilateral engagement since the offensive on eastern Aleppo began. US officials acknowledge they have very little leverage left as it is highly unlikely that Barack Obama would reverse course and threaten military action against the Assad regime in the last three months of his administration.
Some had hoped that the prospect of a military partnership in Syria with the US, as well as fear of being sucked into perpetual conflict, would be sufficient incentive for Moscow to stick to the ceasefire deal. That is now seen in the state department, White House and Pentagon, as wishful thinking.
Local people say the conduct of the campaign has gone beyond anything they have seen since the start of the war. “I just want the world to know that in here are people calling for help, there are children, human souls,” said Bara’a. “There are children dying of no fault of their own.”
.. we know the American election is very much in Putin's mind today, and he would be thinking escalation of the Syrian war could only hope to help one guy .. nope, i don't think it's totally beyond the pale to suggest that Putin is doing all he can to get Thumper elected .. not saying the election would be a key major factor in decisions as these, just suggesting it may not be a mini minor either
US suspends Syria talks with Russia over bombing of rebel-held areas
‘This is not a decision that was taken lightly,’ says US state department of move made after Russian-Syrian bombing campaign intensified on Aleppo
Syrian regime forces gather at the Kindi hospital in Aleppo on Sunday. Photograph: George Ourfalian/AFP/Getty Images
Julian Borger Washington and Martin Chulov Beirut
Monday 3 October 2016 15.10 EDT Last modified on Monday 3 October 2016 19.50 EDT
The US has cut off contacts with Russia .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/russia .. on a Syrian truce, giving up hopes of restoring a ceasefire, as a Russian-Syrian aerial bombing campaign intensified its focus on destroying hospitals in rebel-held areas.
Washington also pulled out military personnel who had been dispatched to work with their Russian counterparts to mount joint bombing operations against Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (JFS, formerly Nusra Front) extremist groups.
A few hours earlier, Moscow declared military contacts .. http://tass.com/politics/903761 .. with the US had also stopped and Vladimir Putin suspended a six-year agreement .. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-nuclear-idUSKCN1230YN .. with Washington on the reduction of military stocks of plutonium, as the bitter differences over Syria and Ukraine continued to drive a downward spiral in the US-Russian relationship.
Two waves of airstrikes struck eastern Aleppo’s M10 hospital, one of the last three functioning major hospitals in the east of the city. The first strike hit the hospital on Monday morning, killing seven people and leaving a large hole near the entrance. It was still reported to be functioning until a second strike in the early evening, when rescue workers were still at the scene. The hospital had already been struck from the air on Saturday and workmen were repairing the damage at the time of the first strike on Monday.
On Sunday, Syrian or Russian aircraft targeted an underground hospital .. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-hospital-idUSKCN1231RQ?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social .. in an opposition area north of Hama. Reports from the city said that no one had been killed in the attack on the hospital which is tunnelled into the side of a mountain, but powerful bombs, possibly bunker-busters designed to destroy buried or hardened targets, wrecked the emergency ward, brought down interior ceilings, crumbled cement walls and destroyed generators.
The US secretary of state, John Kerry, speaks in New York last month. Photograph: Jason DeCrow/AP
“The United States is suspending its participation in bilateral channels with Russia that were established to sustain the cessation of hostilities. This is not a decision that was taken lightly,” the state department spokesman, John Kirby, said, referring to the truce agreed by the US and Russia on 9 September which collapsed in less than a week, after Bashar al-Assad’s government forces declared they were no longer bound by it.
Kirby said Russia had “failed to live up to its own commitments” and failed to rein in its ally, Assad’s regime in Damascus.
“Rather, Russia and the Syrian regime have chosen to pursue a military course, inconsistent with the cessation of hostilities, as demonstrated by their intensified attacks against civilian areas, targeting of critical infrastructure such as hospitals, and preventing humanitarian aid from reaching civilians in need,” Kirby added, and singled out a 19 September attack on a UN aid convoy to a rebel-held area in the Aleppo countryside .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/sep/19/syria-ceasefire-is-over-says-countrys-military , in which British and US officials have alleged Russian aircraft took part.
Under the 9 September truce deal, Russian and US diplomats in Geneva would have coordinated implementation. The American diplomats have now been recalled. The US also declared it was calling back military officials who had been deployed to take part in a “joint implementation centre”. If the ceasefire had lasted a week, the US-Russian centre would have planned and coordinated an air campaign targeting Isis and JFS, which both countries agree are terrorist groups.
However, Kirby said that military coordination with Russia would continue, “to ensure the safety of our respective military personnel and enable the fight against Daesh [Isis]”.
Before the state department announcement on Monday, a Russian deputy foreign minister, Gennady Gatilov, said even those military exchanges had dried up.
“All contacts between the military have been stopped of late, there has been no exchange of information,” Gatilov said .. http://tass.com/politics/903761 .
Moscow has blamed US-backed Syrian opposition groups for failing to separate themselves from JFS on frontlines and for flouting the truce with attacks on Syrian army positions.
France circulated a draft security council resolution expressing outrage at the bombing of the 275,000-strong population of eastern Aleppo and calling for a restoration of the ceasefire “including an end to all aerial bombardments as well as the provision of immediate, safe and unhindered humanitarian access”, according to the draft text seen by the Guardian.
Russia has agreed to consider the resolution but says it has reservations about parts of it. Western diplomats say they expect a very tough battle over the resolution but argue the alternative is security council silence on the horrors of Syria .. https://www.theguardian.com/world/syria .
The French ambassador to the UN, François Delattre, said: “We of course don’t give up, you will not be surprised. We considered that this is our responsibility to do absolutely everything we can, everything humanly possible, to try to unite the security council behind our efforts to end the martyrdom in Aleppo.”
Also on Monday, Vladimir Putin announced that Moscow .. http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-usa-nuclear-idUSKCN1230YN .. was pulling out of a 2000 arms control deal with the US under which both countries were supposed to reduce their stocks of weapons-grade plutonium. Putin had complained earlier this year that the US had not been keeping its end of the bargain, after work fell behind on a plant that had been designed to convert US plutonium to fuel for nuclear power stations. However, announcing his decision yesterday, the Kremlin blamed “unfriendly acts” by the US.
As conditions for returning to the treaty, Moscow said the US would have to lift sanctions imposed on Russia for its intervention in Ukraine, pay compensation for those sanctions, and to reduce US troop presence in eastern Europe to its level in 2000.
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