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Russia denies Syria hospital bombing

Russia on Tuesday denied claims it bombed a hospital funded by Doctors Without Borders in northern Syria.

Russia on Tuesday denied claims it bombed a hospital funded by Doctors Without Borders in northern Syria.

It came after the United Nations said nearly 50 civilians were killed Monday in airstrikes on five hospitals and two schools in northern Syria, days before a proposed cease-fire is due to begin. The United States and aid groups blamed the Syrian government and its ally, Russia, for the airstrikes. Neither nation has acknowledged responsibility for the attacks.

Doctors Without Borders said seven people died when a hospital it funds in Maarat al-Numan, in Idlib province, was bombed. A further eight staff members were missing and presumed dead, the aid agency said. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights blamed Russian warplanes, but Dmitry Peskov, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, denied the accusation Tuesday.

"We are strongly against such claims, the more so, since each time those who come up with such charges prove unable to somehow confirm their groundless accusations," he said, according to Russia’s TASS news agency.

He told reporters that Syria’s ambassador to Russia, Riyadh Haddad, said the hospital was destroyed by the Americans, and not Russia. Col. Steve Warren, the U.S. military spokesman, said the U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State only struck the Syrian cities of Raqqa and Hassaka on Monday and definitely did not bomb the hospital.

“Monday was the worst day for attacks on health care facilities for more than six months," said Carolyn Miles, president of Save the Children U.S, in a statement Tuesday. "New information gathered by Save the Children and other organizations suggests that in total, seven facilities were bombed in airstrikes, more than was first reported. The attacks happened across Syria — in Aleppo, Idlib and Dara’a provinces." 

At least 14 people had died in strikes on a hospital and a school in the rebel-held town of Azaz in northwestern Syria on Monday, Reuters reported. A video purporting to have been taken inside the hospital for women and children in Azaz by a nurse soon after the attack was posted on Facebook on Monday by the Syria Charity, a non-profit organization based in France that said it runs the hospital.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki Moon called the attacks “blatant violations of international laws."

The strikes come after the United States and Russia announced Friday a temporary cease-fire agreement to allow humanitarian aid into Syrian cities, which could start in the coming days.

 

Speaking in televised comments Monday, Assad said a cease-fire did not mean each side had to stop using weapons, and that nobody can secure the necessary conditions within a week.

"There can't be a cease-fire without a goal or a time," he said. "So far they say they want a cease-fire within a week. Who is capable of gathering all these conditions and requirements within a week? Nobody."

 

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