Assad regime barrel bombs knock out Aleppo’s largest hospital

Image of a bombed hospital [Anadolu]

The largest hospital in opposition-held districts of eastern Aleppo were today hit by barrel bombs dropped by the Assad regime, as Russian warplanes and forces loyal to President Bashar Al-Assad press on with their offensive to capture Syria’s largest city.

“Two barrel bombs hit the M10 hospital and there were reports of a cluster bomb as well,” Adham Sahloul of the Syrian American Medical Society told TRT World.

According to Sahloul, the attacks “created immense damage to the facility…as of now there’s no idea of when [the hospital] can be brought back into operation.”

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a London-based organisation that monitors the Syrian civil war, said that a field hospital was attacked and that there was a lot of “back and forth” fighting in the Suleiman Al-Halabi neighbourhood between regime and opposition forces.

As ground battles took place, Reuters reported that air attacks by the Assad regime and its Russian backers focused on the Castello Road and Malah districts, key supply lines for opposition-held areas.

Meanwhile, French Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault condemned the bombing of the M10 hospital and other healthcare facilities, describing the attacks as war crimes.

“Their perpetrators will be held to account,” Ayrault said in a statement from Paris, adding “France is mobilising at the Security Council as we speak to put a stop to this unacceptable tragedy.”