Doctors Without Borders: Russian Air Strike Destroyed Syrian Clinic

February 15, 2016

A spokeswoman for the international aid organization Doctors Without Borders (MSF) says an air strike has destroyed an MSF-supported clinic in the northern Syrian town of Maaret al-Numan.

An MSF statement on February 15 said it was a "deliberate" attack, but did not say who had carried it out.

An unnamed aid official told the AP news agency that at least one patient was killed and nine staffers were missing following the attack.

The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said nine people, including one child, were killed in the attack. The group said the clinic "was destroyed on [February 15] by aircraft, presumably Russian."

On February 9, MSF reported that three people were killed and six injured when an air strike hit a hospital in southern Syria near the border with Jordan a few days earlier. It was undetermined whether that attack was conducted by Russia or by the forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

MSF supports about 150 hospitals and clinics around Syria.

Based on reporting by AFP and AP