Heart-wrenching footage from overcrowded Aleppo hospital

–

16/04/2017

BEIRUT, LEBANON (9:00 A.M.) – Footage filmed at the Aleppo University Hospital on Saturday shows children and women lying on stretchers and being treated, after a suicide attack in Aleppo’s southwestern Rashidin district struck a convoy of evacuees. The victims were from two majority-Shia villages under siege by opposition forces, and were being transferred to government-controlled areas in Aleppo when the attack took place. Around 40 people were killed in the attack.

The convoy of buses that was attacked was carrying civilians from the besieged towns of Fua and Kefraya to the safety of government-controlled areas in Aleppo. The blast, which occurred shortly after the evacuation deal stalled, has been reported as a suicide attack.

The ‘Four Towns’ deal was an agreement to transfer thousands of people that were besieged by rebels in two Shia-majority towns in Syria’s Idlib province, Fua and Kefraya, to government-controlled areas, as well as transferring thousands in two majority-sunni towns, Madaya and Zabadani, that were besieged by government forces near Damascus, to anti-government-controlled areas in Idlib province.

Thousands of fighters and civilians remained trapped in and around Aleppo as the mutual evacuation deal fell apart, reportedly due to opposition militants demanding that more fighters be allowed to evacuate from Madaya and Zabadani than originally agreed.

Related videos