Syria: heavy airstrike killed lives in Eastern Allepo

 

Syrian regime forces pounded eastern Aleppo with airstrikes for a sixth straight day Sunday, bringing the death toll to almost 300 in the most intense bombing since the war began five years ago, rescuers say.

Among the latest reported violence: a suspected chemical attack that killed four children and their parents. Two activist groups -- the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human rights and Aleppo Media Center -- said a barrage of barrel bombs struck their neighborhood, al-Sakhour.

The Syrian regime resumed heavy bombardment over eastern Aleppo on Tuesday after a three-week lull, killing at least 289 people by Saturday, according to the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as White Helmets.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the assault and "indiscriminate shelling" for killing and maiming scores of civilians, including children, and for leaving eastern Aleppo without a functioning hospital.

"The secretary-general reminds all parties to the conflict that targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure is a war crime," the statement said. "Those responsible for these and other atrocities in Syria, whoever and wherever they are, must one day be brought to account."

     

   

According to the News, A video from the Aleppo Media Center shows the toll in one neighborhood.

Five bodies -- three children, two adults -- are visible in the bed of a truck, covered in colorful blankets in the cold air. Their neighbors surround them in the street covered with rubble from bombed buildings.

The mother wears a lavender, black and pink headdress and red sweater. The father wears a heavy off-white or tan sweater while the two boys died in dark blue sweaters, matching their skin; a toddler girl is clad in a baby-blue one, emblazoned with a cartoon character. Their eyes stare, their mouths are agape.

"We were sleeping when a barrel bomb fell near our home," a man explains on the video. "We went down and discovered it was chlorine gas. The victims weren't activists or anything ... but they were suffocating so much, they turned blue. It was a man, four kids, and his wife. The oldest boy was 10 years old. Why did this happen? May God curse you, Bashar (al-Assad)."

Another man shows coins to the videographer from the Aleppo Media Center, which appear tarnished. The man says he took the coins from the pockets of the dead. "The gas caused them to change color," he says.

They weren't the only fatalities from the suspected gas attack. A young man says his family was asleep at 1 a.m. when they were awakened by an explosion.

"We came down and started choking. We discovered it was chlorine gas," he said. "My mother was suffocating and my brother-in-law started foaming at the mouth."

 

 

He said 10 students were killed in the attack, while the state-run news agency SANA put the number at eight.

"What did those kids do to die? I am sad about these students' death," he said.

Medical charities have renewed calls on the regime to stop targeting health facilities.

Several major trauma hospitals have been knocked out of service, the organization said, while three floors were destroyed in eastern Aleppo's only dedicated children's hospital, forcing the evacuation of babies, said the charity Doctors Without Borders, which also is known by its French initials MSF.

But activists working in the city said as many as five other hospitals in eastern neighborhoods were still somewhat functional.

Doctors w/o Borders ✔ @MSF_USA

Tried protecting generator from shrapnel with sand bags. Attacks have destroyed emergency rooms, entire hospitals. 

Doctors without Borders emergency coordinator Teresa Sancristoval said Saturday's bombardment of hospitals marked "a dark day for east Aleppo."

"The attacks have destroyed entire hospitals, electric generators, emergency rooms and wards, forcing them to stop all medical activities," she said.

"It is not only MSF that condemns indiscriminate attacks on civilians or civilian infrastructure, including hospitals, but also humanitarian law. The message is simple and I don't know how to say it any louder: Stop bombing hospitals."

According to reports from Reuters, Staffan De Mistura, the envoy of the United Nations secretary general, met with Syrian Foreign Ministry officials on Sunday and said there was "a total denial of any aerial bombing of hospitals in eastern Aleppo,"

"We should be allowed to send a verification team to verify the damage in hospitals in eastern and western Aleppo," he said.