BEIRUT—Airstrikes blamed on Russia hit at least two hospitals and a school in northern Syria on Monday, killing and wounding dozens of civilians and further dimming hopes for a temporary truce, as government troops backed by Russian warplanes pressed a major offensive north of Aleppo.
The raids came days after Russia and other world powers agreed to bring about a pause in fighting that would allow for the delivery of humanitarian aid and the revival of peace talks.
The projected truce agreed on Friday in Munich was to begin in a week, but there was no sign that would happen.
“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,” said MSF mission chief Massimiliano Rebaudengo.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Russian warplanes targeted the hospital, destroying it and killing nine people. The opposition group, which tracks both sides of the conflict through sources on the ground, said dozens were wounded in the attack.
“The entire building has collapsed on the ground,” said opposition activist Yahya al-Sobeih, speaking by phone from Maaret al-Numan. He said five people were killed near the MSF clinic and “all members of the medical team inside are believed to be dead.”
The Observatory and other opposition activists said another hospital in Maaret al-Numan was also hit Monday, most likely by a Syrian government airstrike.
In the neighboring Aleppo province, a missile struck a children’s hospital in the town of Azaz, killing five people, including three children and a pregnant woman, according to the Observatory. A third air raid hit a school in a nearby village, killing seven and wounding others.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said close to 50 civilians were killed and many more wounded in missile attacks on at least five medical facilities and two schools in northern Syria.
Ban called the attacks “blatant violations of international laws” that “are further degrading an already devastated health care system and preventing access to education in Syria,” according to U.N. deputy spokesman Farhan Haq.
Activists posted amateur video that showed civil defense workers pulling bodies from the rubble of the MSF-supported structure in Idlib, which collapsed into a heap of rubble and was tilting to one side.
Others showed a huge crater next to a building that purportedly housed the child and maternal hospital in Azaz. Incubators could be seen in a ward littered with broken glass and toppled medical equipment.
In Turkey, the private Dogan news agency reported that more than 30 of those wounded in Russian airstrikes in Azaz, primarily children, were transferred to a hospital in southern Turkey. It showed footage of ambulances arriving and medics unloading children on stretchers.
“They hit the school, they hit the school,” wailed a Syrian woman who was unloaded from an ambulance onto a wheelchair.
The U.S. State Department condemned the airstrikes, saying they cast doubt on “Russia’s willingness and/or ability to help bring to a stop the continued brutality of the Assad regime against its own people.”
In Brussels, European Union officials had earlier called on Turkey to halt its military action in Syria after Turkish forces shelled positions held by a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia over the weekend.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said that “only a few days ago, all of us including Turkey, sitting around the table, decided steps to de-escalate and have a cessation of hostilities.”
Dutch Foreign Minister Bert Koenders, whose country holds the EU’s rotating presidency, said “we have the plan for a cessation of hostilities and I think everybody has to abide by that.”
The U.N.’s special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, arrived in Damascus on Monday for talks with Syrian officials.
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