Source: Time

By Jared Malsin

There are currently no functioning hospitals in the rebel-held section of the Syrian city of Aleppo following days of heavy shelling and airstrikes by Syrian government and Russian warplanes, medical officials say.

Airstrikes took out the last remaining hospital on Friday, according to the Health Directorate in the rebel sector, medics, and several nongovernmental organizations working closely with Aleppo’s hospitals. Warplanes bombed five separate hospitals in the rebel enclave in the span of a few days.

The shutdown means there are no facilities left to aid wounded civilians in eastern Aleppo, where as many as 300,000 people are living under a siege imposed by the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. Medics may continue to work in makeshift clinics elsewhere in the city, but as of Friday there were no fully equipped hospitals still operating.

Syrian medics and activists fear that Russia now intends to force an endgame in the battle for eastern Aleppo, a decimated urban landscape where armed opposition groups have held out against the regime for more than four years. The eastern half of the city is a critical redoubt for rebel groups, who have lost ground to the regime since the Russian bombing campaign began in September 2015.

“I think the value of the hospital—it’s important medically but it’s more important psychologically. When people know there is a place where they can be treated and they feel safe somehow. When they know they’re all out of service, they panic. I think that’s what the regime is trying to do,” says Mohammad Yasser Tabbaa of the Syrian Expatriate Medical Association, a group supporting hospitals in rebel-held parts of Syria.

The attacks on the hospitals came as Russia and the Assad regime continue a devastating military offensive on eastern Aleppo and other rebel-held areas. The current campaign began on November 15 following weeks of relative calm.

Read more