Seven civilians were killed and at least 14 medics were injured when artillery shelling from a Syrian army outpost hit a hospital in an opposition-held town in northwestern Syria on Sunday, medics and rescuers said.
They said a woman and a child were among those killed when several mortar rounds hit the hospital in the city of Atareb which was taken out of service.
Turkey’s defense ministry earlier said on Sunday five people were killed and 10 injured in an artillery attack by Damascus-backed forces on a hospital in the northwest Syria, where they have a military presence.
Videos received by Reuters from two witnesses showed a ward damaged and civil defense rescuers carrying blood-stained patients outside. Reuters could not verify their authenticity.
The attack came despite a Russian-Turkish ceasefire since March 2020 supposed to protect the wider extremist-held stronghold.
The Idlib region is home to 2.9 million people, of whom two thirds have been displaced from their homes by conflict, the United Nations says.
The region on the border with Turkey is controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which is led by members of Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate, but several opposition groups are also present.
The ceasefire brokered by opposition-backer Turkey and regime ally Russia last March stemmed a months-long regime military offensive on the bastion that killed hundreds of civilians and displaced more than a million people from their homes.
It has since largely held despite repeated violations including Russian air strikes on the region, according to the Observatory.
Medical facilities have been hit multiple times in the Idlib region during the war.
Between 2016 and 2019, the World Health Organization documented up to 337 attacks on healthcare sites in Syria's northwest.
The war has killed more than 388,000 people and displaced millions at home and abroad since starting in 2011 with the brutal repression of peaceful anti-government protests.
Seventy percent of healthcare workers have fled Syria since the start of the conflict, while after years of bombardment only 58 percent of hospitals remain fully functional, the UN says.
