By Muhammad Haj Kadour and Vivian Yee
Hospitals have been ripped apart by airstrikes. Nearly 50,000 people have fled their homes, and tens of thousands lack running water. Civilians are being laid out in body bags on hospital floors after shells struck their neighborhoods.
Scenes from the bloodiest days of Syria’s civil war, which had lain largely dormant for several years, are now repeating themselves in the country’s northwest as pro-government forces try to beat back a surprise rebel offensive, according to aid workers, a war monitor and the United Nations, who warned of a rapidly worsening humanitarian situation.
Conditions were already dire for civilians in the area: Years of war and a powerful February 2023 earthquake had led to crushing poverty, displacement and breakdowns in services. But over the last several days, the region’s misery deepened as Russian and Syrian fighter jets have repeatedly struck Idlib and Aleppo in northwestern Syria and rebels fought to capture more territory.
The U.N. said more than 50 airstrikes had hit Idlib province in northwestern Syria on Sunday and Monday. Four health facilities, four schools and two camps housing people displaced from earlier phases of the conflict suffered damage, it said.
Stéphane Dujarric, a U.N. spokesperson, said in a briefing Monday night that a strike on a water station had also cut off access for at least 40,000 people. And the Norwegian Refugee Council, which provides aid in the region, said its humanitarian workers were reporting that bakeries and shops had shut down in Aleppo, leading to food shortages.
Dujarric said 24 health care centers in Idlib and western Aleppo province had suspended operations amid the fighting, adding that humanitarian activities had been largely paused out of concern for aid workers’ safety.
In the city of Idlib, which the rebels fully control, several hospitals showed damage Tuesday from what staff said were pro-government airstrikes a day earlier. At SAMS Maternity Hospital and Ibn Sina Children’s Hospital, heavily damaged incubator units for premature infants were seen.
Dr. Mohammed Hussam Kaddouh, the director of Idlib University Hospital, said Tuesday that his facility was one of two that was knocked completely out of service by strikes.
“The strikes directly targeted the hospital,” Kaddouh said. “Right now we’re mainly relying on the remaining medical centers outside of Idlib.”
One strike hit the hospital’s eastern wing in front of the emergency room’s entrance, Kaddouh said, and another its northern wing. On Tuesday, large shards of glass were still visible in front of a reception desk. Units that housed patients were torn apart, their ceilings displaying gaping holes, with debris strewed through hallways and patient rooms.
One missile slammed through two reinforced concrete roofs and landed in the hospital’s basement, according to Kaddouh, who said no one was injured in the strikes because people inside were able to evacuate in time.
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