The State Department condemned airstrikes in northern Syria on Monday that killed nearly 50 people and are being blamed on Russian warplanes.
“We call again on all parties to cease attacks on civilians and take immediate steps to grant humanitarian access and the cessation of hostilities that the Syrian people desperately need,” spokesman John Kirby said in a statement.
Doctors Without Borders said two makeshift hospitals and a school were hit in Monday’s strikes, which are the latest in a series of attacks against medical facilities thought to be led by Russia. Over the weekend, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev denied that Moscow was targeting civilian facilities in Syria.
But Kirby said the attacks “cast doubts on Russia’s willingness and/or ability to help bring to a stop the continued brutality of the Assad regime against its own people.”
“That the Assad regime and its supporters would continue these attacks, without cause and without sufficient regard for international obligations to safeguard innocent lives, flies in the face of the unanimous calls … to avoid attacks on civilians,” Kirby said.
Doctors Without Borders mission chief Massimiliano Rebaudengo said the attacks appear to be “deliberate.”
“This appears to be a deliberate attack on a health structure, and we condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms,” he said in a statement. “The destruction of the hospital leaves the local population of around 40,000 people without access to medical services in an active zone of conflict.”
The airstrikes took place in the northern towns of Maaret al-Numan and Azaz City. Russia’s airstrike campaign directed against Syrian rebel groups have helped Syrian President Bashar Assad achieve some of his biggest victories in the ongoing conflict.
