Russian and Assad regime forces have deliberately struck hospitals and medical facilities in Aleppo as they advanced on the north Syrian town, according to Amnesty International.
An Amnesty report on Friday said the human rights body had gathered evidence of at least six deliberate attacks on hospitals and clinics in northern rural Aleppo over the last three months.
Three civilians and a medical worker were killed and 44 others injured in the attacks, which Amnesty described as “war crimes”.
Tirana Hassan, Amnesty International’s Crisis Response director, said that hospitals had become “the new front line” in the offensive by Russian and Syrian regime forces.
Hassan added that “Syrian and Russian forces have been deliberately attacking health facilities in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law. But what is truly egregious is that wiping out hospitals appears to have become part of their military strategy.”
“The latest string of attacks on health facilities north of Aleppo appears to be part of a pattern of attacks on medics and hospitals, a strategy that has destroyed scores of medical facilities and killed hundreds of doctors and nurses since the start of the conflict,” Hassan added.
On Tuesday, NATO’s top general accused Russia and the Assad regime of fomenting a mass exodus of refugees as a “weapon” against the West.
Philip Breedlove, the NATO’s supreme commander in Europe, told US lawmakers that the mass bombing of civilian targets appeared to serve no other purpose than to weaken Europe by creating a massive, and continuous, wave of people desperate for food, shelter and safety. (Source: Agencies)
