East Aleppo: Inside a hospital destroyed by an airstrike

Videos and Photos9 December 2016

The road in front of the hospital hit by airstrikes on 17 November 2016. Photo: Karam Almasri/MSF

The main entrance of the hospital after it was hit by bombardments. Photo: Karam Almasri/MSF

The generator that supplied the hospital with electricity remains intact after the airstrikes. Hospital staff had surrounded it with sandbags to protect it from possible bomb damage. Photo: Karam Almasri/MSF

The hospital’s main reception area was shattered by the bombing. Photo: Karam Almasri/MSF

A nurse inspects the damage in the bombed hospital. Since the siege began in July, every functioning hospital in east Aleppo has been damaged by airstrikes and shelling, some of them more than once. Photo: Karam Almasri/MSF

Sandbags piled against the windows of the intensive care unit to provide it with some extra protection. A child who was recovering from surgery had to be taken off life support equipment and carried to the basement of the hospital to shelter from the bombs. Photo: Karam Almasri/MSF

The second floor of the hospital, where most of the supplies of medications were stored, was severely damaged. Photo: Karam Almasri/MSF

A room on the second floor of the hospital. Since 2013, MSF has been providing drugs, supplies and medical equipment to health facilities in east Aleppo. Photo: Karam Almasri/MSF

The airstrikes shattered everything on the surroundings, including ambulances and cars parked in the front of the hospital. Photo: Karam Almasri/MSF

An ambulance parked in front of the hospital was destroyed, leaving only its metal frame. Fortunately there was no one in the vehicle when it was hit. Photo: Karam Almasri/MSF

The aftermath of an attack on one of the key surgical hospitals in east Aleppo during airstrikes on 17 November 2016. The damage was so extensive that the hospital was forced to go out of service immediately. The hospital had an emergency room, an intensive care unit and a number of operating theatres providing orthopaedic and general surgery.

Access to health care in east Aleppo has now become next to non-existent for a population of more than 250,000 who desperately need it. They have been trapped under siege for over four months. Since the airstrikes resumed on the 15 November 2016, heavy bombings and clashes on the ground have left hospitals utterly destroyed.

MSF strongly condemns all attacks on civilians and breaches of international humanitarian law perpetrated by all warring parties in Syria.