Rocket attacks on Syrian hospital, residential areas kill 21

dpa Cairo The death toll in rocket attacks the day before on residential areas and a hospital in Syria’s northern town of Afrin, which is controlled by Tu...

dpaCairo The death toll in rocket attacks the day before on residential areas and a hospital in Syria’s northern town of Afrin, which is controlled by Turkish-backed rebels, has climbed to 21 people, a war monitor reported on Sunday.Those killed in the attacks unleashed on Saturday by Syrian government forces include 17 civilians, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights added.Most fatalities took place in the town’s al-Shifaa Hospital, it said.They include a doctor and three other hospital staff as well as two children and two women.Earlier Sunday, the Britain-based watchdog put the death toll at 19 people.At least 23 others were injured by the rockets fired by Syrian government forces from areas under their control, according to the observatory. So far, there has been no comment from Damascus.The humanitarian non-governmental organization, the International Rescue Committee (IRC), condemned the attack and said the hospital, one of the largest in northern Syria, is now out of service after the attack.Al-Shifaa Hospital is supported by the Syrian American Medical Society,an IRC partner.“Health facilities are protected under international law and should be safe havens in times of crisis, but after 10 years of armed conflict, this is not the case in Syria,” IRC Acting Country Director for Syria Wolfgang Gressmann said.“Since the start of the conflict, Physicians for Human Rights have documented close to 600 attacks on health care. Past experience shows that any uptick in attacks on health care can foreshadow a new escalation in violence,” he added in a statement.The mainly Kurdish enclave of Afrin was captured by the Turkish military and allied Syrian rebel fighters during a 2018 offensive.  The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) denied the involvement of their forces in Saturday’s attack.