Between one and five hospital staff were wounded in two alleged Russian airstrikes on Ikhlas Hospital for women and children in Shannan village, Jabal Zawiya, at dawn on November 6, 2019, local media reported.
The New York Times later geolocated the event.
According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, “fixed-wing warplanes we believe were Russian carried out two strikes on al Ikhlas Hospital located in southeast of Shnan village in Jabal al Zaweya area in the southern suburbs of Idlib governorate, injuring two medical personnel, partially destroying the hospital’s building and severely damaging its equipment. As a result, the hospital went out of service”.
The White Helmets said three hospital staff were wounded, though the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Alarabiya News put the number at five. Two doctors and a nurse were reportedly injured in two consecutive dawn raids.
@RoaaMediaNews tweeted “Russian warplanes launched two raids on Al-Ikhlas Hospital in the village of Shannan of Jabal Al-Zawiya in Idlib countryside last night, which resulted in the injury of one of the staff and the hospital being out of service.”
The director of the hospital, Dr. Zuhair Qarat, told Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed, “The hospital serves about 100,000 people, and it is a women’s and children’s hospital, and it includes a vaccination center… the injuries were slight because we evacuated the hospital after the first raid, while the second raid completely destroyed the hospital.”
The nurse at Al-Ikhlas Hospital, Ahmed Hamrin, told Al-Arabi Al-Jadeed that “Shanan Hospital was targeted at 1:30 on Tuesday – Wednesday night, by Russian warplanes, and the hospital is now almost completely destroyed. The bombing did not cause casualties, and was limited. The hospital is the only one in Jabal al-Zawiya, and the nearest hospital today is about 15 km away in Maarat al-Nu’man. Shannan Hospital used to give birth to between 100 to 150 women per month.” Al-Arabi added that the strike “resulted in the injury of a number of staff, and the children and infants escaped certain death, as the bombing did not destroy the incubators’ room, which was full of children.”
The Smart News Agency published images of destroyed “medical equipment and incubators”. A video posted by @SY_plus shows fires in the hospital as White Helmets try to put the fires out.
A tweet from @hayyanfreedom pointed out that “the Children and Women’s Hospital was permanently out of service after it was targeted by Russian warplanes at midnight last night with a double raid.”
All of the sources that reported on the incident attributed the airstrikes to Russia.
The incident occured at approximately 1:30 am local time.
