Russian airstrikes reportedly struck a Syrian-American Medical Society-run field hospital, killing at least 13 people, including two medical staff members, in Sarmin, Idlib province on October 20th.
The attack was not the first incident of Russia striking a medical facility in war-torn Syria.
Russia has reportedly targeted multiple medical facilities and hospitals – sites that should be sacred and untouchable to all warring parties despite Bashar al-Assad’s own history of destroying them.
Moscow’s apparent inability or unwillingness to accurately report on the targets of its own attacks underscores the risk and foolishness of believing Russia will help end this bloody conflict, according to fleminggazette magazine.
According to Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), Russia has targeted at least seven medical facilities or hospitals since beginning its aerial offensive on 30 September in Syria. On 2-3 October alone, PHR reported that Russian jets bombarded three hospitals in Hama governorate, Idlib, and Latakia. According to a press release published by the same group, the airstrike that hit al-Burnas Hospital in Latakia destroyed the site’s capability to provide obstetrics and gynecology care and was since, “only able to provide some emergency services.”

The basic plea to acknowledge that the remaining medical facilities in Syria must be deemed totally off limits is one that Russia cannot disregard. The Assad regime attacks on health care workers and the sites at which they operate are well-documented; since the conflict has begun hundreds of medical personnel have been killed while the country’s health care system has unraveled. Such barbaric, criminal attacks cannot be conducted by yet another party involved in the conflict.
In a new Reuters analysis, their team’s assessments concluded that a stunning 80 percent of Russian strikes have failed to target ISIS-held areas.