RT has visited a school and a hospital in Aleppo and witnessed children who were mutilated by Islamists’ mortar and rocket fire in government-controlled areas.
Last night has been restless for the government-controlled western Aleppo, where multiple mortar shells landed. SANA news agency said that at least four people have been killed and 14 others injured as shells targeted al-Hamadaneyah neighborhood, though the exact number of victims is not immediately clear.
RT’s Murad Gazdiev has seen an appalling aftermath of the indiscriminate fire in an Aleppo hospital. Hassan, a 10-year-old boy born deaf and mute, has lost his leg in the shelling, but he was fortunate enough to survive.
“The day before yesterday he was playing with other boys in al-Hamadaneyah area when the shell landed there,” one of Hassan’s relatives explained. “One of the boys was torn apart completely and my nephew had his foot blown off.”
The hospital seems to be overcrowded with the injured and on the brink of its capacity to provide emergency care; not everyone gets painkillers as they are in short supply.
Hospitals aside, other civilian objects are also vulnerable to the shelling. An elementary school, which lies around 1km away from the frontline, has been severely damaged by rockets coming from Islamist-held eastern Aleppo.
But against all odds, the school continues to run classes using rooms that are still intact.
“Our school is constantly coming under fire from terrorists,” a local resident told RT. “Just yesterday, a shell landed in the schoolyard. Thank goodness our children were already in the classroom and no one got hurt.”
However the ordeal of civilians risking their lives under rebel shelling in western Aleppo does not get much coverage in Western media.
In addition to civilian infrastructure, the Monday shelling targeted Syriatel communication station as well as government troops’ positions near quarter 1070, the Assad Military Academy, and a cement plant, according to the Russian Center for the Reconciliation in Syria. Islamists have also shelled Castello trade center and a checkpoint on the Castello Road.
READ MORE: Several killed, injured in shelling of gov’t-held area of Aleppo (EXCLUSIVE VIDEO)
Meanwhile, humanitarian situation in Aleppo is “beyond alarming and only continues to deteriorate,” Krista Armstrong of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) told RT in a statement.
Less than a third of hospitals are still functional, and there are only 14 trained doctors left in eastern Aleppo, the ICRC said, while people are still in desperate need for healthcare, water and sanitation.