Aleppo left in ruins as Syrian cease-fire crumbles
ALEPPO, Syria -- The cease-fire in Syria has collapsed as the Assad dictatorship goes on the offensive to retake the city of Aleppo -- part of which is in rebel hands. Russian forces are helping the assault.
Aleppo is descending once again into an inferno, the chaos and insanity of a civil war with no winners -- only loss and despair.
You could see it in one man, digging for survivors with his bare hands. "This was a residential area, shouted another man, "we're not terrorists."
The airstrikes pounded their neighborhood, crushing people beneath the rubble of their own homes and destroying one of the few hospitals left in the rebel-held section of Aleppo.
It was hit by a strike overnight. The international aid group supporting it, Doctors Without Borders, said the hospital was a center for child medicine.
"That's my family," one man cried, "my whole family."
Also killed in the carnage was one of the last pediatricians still working in rebel-held Aleppo.
We don't know who launched these airstrikes. Russia says it wasn't responsible, but the Syrian regime and its foreign backers are trying to recapture all of Aleppo. For those in the firing line, the Syrian ceasefire is meaningless.
Even hospitals, where Syrians go to heal their wounds, are instead places where they risk being slaughtered.
Doctors Without Borders said today that the hospital was targeted. In fact, many of the hospitals the group supports do not give their GPS coordinates to the Syrian regime -- for fear that instead of being protected in the war zone, they will be deliberately attacked.