Doctors Without Borders

Photo:A makeshift hospital in Idlib Governorate, destroyed by armed forces at the end of March 2012. Syria 2012 © MSF

In Syria’s Idlib Province, Little Medical Care For Civilians Living Under Intense Bombing

In the north of Syria’s Idlib Province, civilians are terrorized by a strategy of intense and indiscriminate bombing and the wounded face few options for emergency medical care, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said today.

As fighting intensifies north of the road linking Aleppo and Idlib provinces, Syrian government forces are bombing towns and villages indiscriminately, endangering the lives of ordinary people.  An MSF team returned from one northern city in Idlib, which was repeatedly bombed over recent months. The only medical facility still functioning there is a secretly run clinic, staffed by local people and a few Syrian health workers.

“Since we’re prohibited from working on the side of the government forces, we’re not able to take an impartial view of the situation,” said Dr. Mego Terzian, MSF’s emergency operations manager. “But what we’re witnessing is a real strategy of terror, orchestrated by the Syrian government, against the people of this area.”