UN: Hospitals in Aleppo 'all but obliterated'

The ruins of a Syrian hospital bombed on Saturday.
(Image credit: Thaer Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images )

With indiscriminate bombings leaving hospitals in Aleppo "all but obliterated," a United Nations official on Sunday said it's a "race against time to protect and save civilians" in the eastern part of the city.

The warfare has subjected civilians to "a level of savagery that no human should have to endure," Stephen O'Brien, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator, said in a statement. People are being killed and maimed, he said, with the amount of shelling "shocking and unrelenting."

The Syrian government and its allies, notably Russia, are continuing their offensive to take back the rebel-held portion of Aleppo, launching dozens of airstrikes overnight. On Saturday, two patients were killed when the largest trauma and intensive care center in eastern Aleppo was hit by air strikes; it was so heavily damaged that it had to close, NBC News reports. The Syrian American Medical Society, which helped support the hospital, said over the past three months, it was hit seven times by airstrikes, with three of those attacks taking place this week.

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Catherine Garcia

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.