Hospital for women and children demolished in Aleppo airstrike
DAMASCUS -- More than a dozen were reported dead in rebel-held Aleppo on Friday, just another statistic in the country's five-year civil war.
But for the villagers of Al Hayan on the outskirts of the city, these victims were not numbers. They were mothers, sisters, and -- as always -- children.
In graphic video footage posted online, a rescue worker runs with a baby in his arms. Another man plucks an unconscious child off a dead body.
Injured children are taken to the few remaining medical facilities in rebel-controlled Aleppo, but instead of being safe havens they have become targets.
Just 24 hours after the last remaining doctors wrote to President Obama for help, a children's hospital was hit in an airstrike. The equipment was smashed, and services all but demolished.
It was the only children's hospital in the area.
In rebel-held Aleppo, a medical facility is attacked every 17 hours, doctors say. And so the statistics mount.
There is always someone who has to deliver the worst possible news in Aleppo.
Here in Damascus, there was no mention of these incidents anywhere on state-run media. No Syrian government official would talk to us about the hospital bombing -- not even to deny it.