EU calls on Turkey to halt military action in Syria

Activist Bahaa al-Halaby, who is based in the northern city of Aleppo, said the hospital was struck by a missile, and that 10 people were killed. Another hospital was bombed in Azaz, also in the Aleppo province, where Turkey has been carrying out attacks against Kurdish fighters.

In an interview published in Spiegel on Monday, Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister said Russian troops would continue air strikes against the ISIL and Al-Nusra groups, despite a proposed ceasefire in Syria.

A United Nations spokesman said Secretary General Ban Ki-moon was deeply concerned.

A separate attack targeted a second hospital in Maarat al-Numan, which is in Idlib province, killing three people.

“A third of hospitals and a quarter of schools in Syria – 5,000 – are no longer functioning”, said UNICEF executive director Anthony Lake in response to the attacks.

Aid workers in the area have blamed Russian Federation for the attack, which killed at least 12 children.

The United States and Russian Federation brokered a truce agreement in Munich, Germany on Friday for a “cessation of hostilities” in Syria’s almost five-year-old civil war that could begin in less than a week.

According to Médecins Sans Frontières, at least seven people were killed, and at least eight are missing, presumed dead, after a MSF-supported hospital in Idlib province in northern Syria was destroyed in an attack this morning.

Daragh McDowell, the head Russia analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, a British risk analysis firm, said Russian and Syrian tactics “strongly suggest a deliberate effort to further exacerbate the refugee crisis, as a means of destabilizing Europe and pressuring the West to agree to a settlement in Syria on Moscow and Damascus’ terms”.

In a related development, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu and German Chancellor Angela Merkel spoke on Sunday about the situation in Syria, the prime minister’s office said.

“There were at least seven deaths among the personnel and the patients, and at least eight MSF personnel have disappeared, and we don’t know if they are alive”, the French president of the charity, Dr. Mego Terzian, said.

The United Nations said the attacks took place in northern Syria’s Aleppo and Idlib provincs, as Russian-backed Syrian troops intensified their push toward the rebel stronghold in Aleppo city.

One medic, Juma Rahal, told the Reuters news agency: “We have been moving scores of screaming children from the hospital”.

The statement added that MSF has been supporting the hospital since September and covered all its needs, including providing medical supplies and running costs.

A hospital employee known as Moudhar told CNN that staff were evacuating the wounded after the first strike on the Women and Children’s Hospital when the complex and road were struck again. The government also reacted on recent remarks by the U.S. State Department that encourages the country to work with the Kurds in dealing with Islamic State militants who have put majority of Syria under siege.

His comments escalated a war of words with Moscow, which earlier criticized Turkey’s shelling in Syria as “provocative” and said it backed raising the issue at the Security Council.