Fatal raid on northwest Syria hospital deliberate

Doctors Without Borders has sharply condemned a deadly aerial attack against its medical facility in Syria’s northwestern province of Idlib and said the raid was not “accidental.”

The Paris-based medical aid group, known by its French acronym MSF, confirmed seven people were killed after one of its health facilities was hit by four missiles within minutes of each other in the Maarat al-Numaan city of Syria’s Idlib Province.

The quick succession “leads us to believe that … it wasn’t an accidental attack, that it was deliberate,” said Sam Taylor, a spokesman for Doctors Without Borders operations in Syria.

Massimiliano Rebaudengo, MSF’s head mission, also said the strike “appears to be a deliberate attack on a health structure and we condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms.”
“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,” he added.

The MSF said five patients, a caretaker and a guard were among the dead, while eight staff members were missing and presumed dead following the airstrike.