{"id":2182,"date":"2016-04-30T12:19:05","date_gmt":"2016-04-30T17:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/?p=2182"},"modified":"2016-04-30T12:19:14","modified_gmt":"2016-04-30T17:19:14","slug":"news-world-news-aleppo-canadian-funded-hospital-bombed-by-russian-and-government-air-strikes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/2182\/","title":{"rendered":"News – World News Aleppo: Canadian-funded hospital bombed by Russian and government air strikes"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Canadian<\/a>
Canadian government says Canadians are outraged by the deliberate targeting of volunteers, humanitarian workers and medical personnel.<\/strong><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

OTTAWA <\/strong>– An aid agency says a Canadian-funded hospital in Syria has been destroyed.
\nThe Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations says the Al Marjeh Primary Health Care Centre in Aleppo, which has received millions of dollars in medical supplies from Canada, was bombed during air strikes Friday.
\nThe group\u2019s website says the facility was hit strikes conducted by Syrian government and Russian aircraft.
\nThe organization says it was the second bombing of a civilian hospital in three days.
\nCalling the attack a war crime, the non-profit agency is urging the international community to protect hospitals and aid workers targeted in the country\u2019s civil war.
\nThe organization says the Al Marjeh health care facility was opened in 2014 and has since performed over 46,000 consultations, with mostly women and children.
\nMarie-Claude Bibeau, Canada\u2019s Minister of International Development, said Canadians are outraged by the deliberate targeting of volunteers, humanitarian workers and medical personnel coming to the aid of the Syrian people.
\n\u201cThis violates international humanitarian law,\u201d said Ms. Bibeau in a statement late Friday. \u201cTargeting hospitals and medical clinics is unacceptable.\u201d
\n <\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

An injured woman walks through the rubble of a building hit by airstrikes in rebel-held Old Aleppo, Syria, April 28, 2016.
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

The Al-Marjeh primary health care centre was hit around midday and badly damaged, although no one was hurt, according to Dr. Anas Al Kassem, the head of UOSSM-Canada, a non-profit group that funds the clinic. The attack was just one of four on medical facilities on both sides of the front lines Friday, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, just a day after a massive blast at the Al-Quds hospital killed at least 50 people, according to M\u00e9decins sans fronti\u00e8res (Doctors Without Borders).
\n\u201cFortunately we were not operating on [Friday], so no casualties, but it was badly damaged with the lab, X-ray department and the dentist clinic destroyed,\u201d said Dr. Al Kassem.
\nDr. Al Kassem, a Syrian-born Canadian surgeon, said he believes the hospital was targeted either by Russian or Syrian government forces, as none of the rebel factions or the Islamic State has proven itself capable of carrying out air strikes.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s got to be either the regime or the Russians. People on the ground, they\u2019ve become quite expert, they tell us if it\u2019s very accurate and smart missiles it is Russian. So we believe it\u2019s Russian, but there\u2019s nothing to confirm.\u201d
\nThe attacks on health-care facilities represent yet another terrifying development in the Syrian civil war. Over the last week Aleppo has once again exploded in violence with at least 200 killed in air strikes, according to reports. The Syrian government announced a ceasefire in some areas near Aleppo, but the city itself remains a battleground. The United Nations <\/a> said the recent surge in violence showed a \u201cmonstrous disregard\u201d for civilian lives.
\nDr. Al Kassem said that although he hasn\u2019t received an official report on the damage to the clinic, he expects the facility, which saw 1,900 patients last month, will have to be abandoned and reopened elsewhere in Aleppo.
\n\u201cI saw the pictures and the pictures look very devastating. Many equipment damaged and from the outside, the clinic looks not operable any more, so we\u2019ll have to relocate it to another area. The problem is we don\u2019t know where is going to be safe because we don\u2019t know where the next air strike is going to hit,\u201d Dr. Al Kassem said.
\n\u201cThey\u2019re targeting civil community centres everywhere, including health care centres, as we saw two days ago. The people are scared, they\u2019re panicking, they\u2019re leaving the city \u2026Things are getting really bad.\u201d
\nUOSSM-Canada hasn\u2019t sent any Canadian nurses or physicians to the area since 2014, due to the dangerous conditions. It operates the clinic from Canada and sends supplies and medications that it receives primarily as donations from NGOs and health facilities here in Canada. Its 11 Syrian health-care facilities received $3-million last year, according to Dr. Al Kassem.
\nThe clinic is located near the city centre and cares mainly for women and children. It does not perform surgery or care for those wounded in the conflict, Dr. Al Kassem said.
\nThe UN has called on Moscow and Washington to help restore the ceasefire to prevent the collapse of peace talks, which broke up this week in Geneva with virtually no progress after groups opposed to the regime walked out.
\nAleppo, Syria\u2019s largest city before the war, has been divided for years between rebel and government zones. Full control would be the most important prize for Bashar al-Assad, who has been fighting to keep hold of his country throughout a five-year civil war that UN mediator Staffan de Mistura says has killed up to 400,000 people.
\nSince Russia joined the war last year with air strikes against\u00a0al-Assad\u2019s enemies, battlefield momentum has shifted in the government\u2019s favour.
\nHundreds of thousands of people still live in rebel zones of Aleppo, and the countryside to the north includes the only stretch of the Turkish-Syrian border still in the hands of Mr. al-Assad\u2019s main opponents, Arab Sunni Muslim rebel groups.
\nOpposition groups accuse the government of deliberately targeting civilians so they will abandon the area.
\nSource: The Globe and Mail, The Canadian Press, 30 APRIL 2016<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

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OTTAWA – An aid agency says a Canadian-funded hospital in Syria has been destroyed. The Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations says the Al […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2183,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[44,5,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2182","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-human-rights","category-news","category-terrorism-fundamentalism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2182","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2182"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2182\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2185,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2182\/revisions\/2185"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2183"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.irandemocratic.org\/public_html\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}