Aleppo's Last Pediatrician Killed in Airstrikes

At least 27 dead in nighttime attack
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Apr 28, 2016 7:43 AM CDT
Aleppo's Last Pediatrician Killed in Airstrikes
In this file photo made from video Sunday and posted online by Syria Civil Defense, a man helps an injured man as others stand in rubble after airstrikes and shelling hit Aleppo, Syria.   (Uncredited)

A wave of overnight airstrikes hit a hospital in Syria supported by Doctors Without Borders and nearby buildings in the rebel-held part of the contested city of Aleppo, killing at least 27 people. The strikes hit the well-known al-Quds field hospital, according to opposition activists and rescue workers, and the city's last pediatrician was among those killed, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says, per Reuters. Syria Civil Defense, a volunteer first-responders agency, tells the AP that the al-Quds hospital and adjacent buildings were struck in four consecutive airstrikes; it adds victims are still buried under the rubble and rescue work continues. An agency video posted online shows a number of lifeless bodies, including those of children, being pulled out from a building and loaded into ambulances amid screaming.

The UN envoy for Syria appealed early Thursday for the US and Russia to help revive the peace talks and a ceasefire, which he said "hangs by a thread." The February 27 ceasefire has been fraying in the past weeks as casualty figures from violence mount, particularly in Aleppo and across northern Syria. Airstrikes earlier this week also targeted a training center for Syria Civil Defense, leaving five of its team dead in rural Aleppo. Since April 19, nearly 200 people have died, including at least 44 in an airstrike on a market place in a rebel-held area in northern Idlib province, as well as dozens of civilians in government-held areas from rebel shelling. (More Syria stories.)

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