Air strikes on Syria hospital kill at least 7: MSF

In a separate incident, missiles hit another hospital in the town of Marat Numan in Idlib province, in north western Syria, said the French president of the Doctors Without Borders/Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) charity, which was supporting the hospital.

“Such attacks are a blatant violation of global laws”, Farhan Haq, a spokesman for U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, told reporters at a briefing Monday afternoon in NY.

“The destruction of this hospital deprives about 40,000 people of health care in this conflict zone”.

Moscow has said it is targeting “terrorist groups” and has dismissed suggestion it has killed civilians since it began its air campaign in support of Assad in September.

MSF medical facilities are protected under global law.

Warren, however, said it was too soon to know who was responsible for the attack, whether it’s the Syrian regime of President Bashar al-Assad, a local group or Russian forces.

Kurdish-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Monday captured over 70 percent of a key town in northern Syria near Turkish borders, a monitor group reported.

Azaz, which is part of Syria’s Aleppo province, serves as a critical corridor that connects Turkey.

“The entire building has collapsed on the ground”, said opposition activist Yahya al-Sobeih, speaking by phone from Maaret al-Numan.

“All staff in the field, the medical staff, the patients, they immediately report, they said: “Those are airstrikes from the Russians” but at the same time the information was not so clear because other people in the area, other staff reported that the shelling was coming from the ground”, said Isabelle Defourny, Head of Operations with MSF France.

Paramedics and volunteers were working on removing the rubble, he added.

A boy lies on a bed with an injured hand after what is said to be a missile attack on a hospital in Azaz, Aleppo, Syria.

But Russia argues that the “cessation” does not apply to its air strikes, which have tilted the balance of the war in favour of the Syrian government. It showed footage of ambulances arriving at the Kilis State hospital, medics unloading children on stretchers and a girl wrapped in a blanket.

Tens of thousands of people have fled to the town of Azaz, the last rebel stronghold before the border with Turkey, from towns and villages where there is heavy fighting between the Syrian army and militias. He said some 10 people were killed and many were wounded.

Davutoglu said on Monday that YPG fighters would have taken control of rebel-held Azaz and the town of Tal Rifaat further south had it not been for Turkish artillery firing at them over the weekend.

He said Saudi officials discussed the possibility of sending troops with Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during a recent three-day visit to Saudi Arabia.

“American warplanes destroyed it”, Syria’s Ambassador to Moscow Riad Haddad said of the bombed hospital in an interview with Russian state television channel Rossiya 24. It was unclear who carried out the latest attacks.