On March 1, 2021, Zvezda Russian TV channel broadcasted a video showing its reporters walking around a hospital. We at the Syrian Network for Human Rights confirm that this hospital is the Martyr Dr Hassan Muhammad al Araj Hospital, known as al Maghara Central Hospital, which is located in the vicinity of Kafr Zita in the northern suburbs of Hama governorate. According to SNHR’s database, we previously documented that the hospital was subjected to several attacks by Syrian-Russian alliance forces after it began serving as a hospital in 2015, most notably an air strike in which Dr. Hassan al Araj was killed on April 13, 2016, with these air raids also destroying parts of the hospital and damaging various items of medical equipment.
The bombardment of the hospital, built in a cave, confirms that this attack was wholly intentional, planned and deliberate, with the hospital located far from any residential buildings and constructed in a cave deep inside a mountain precisely to avoid such bombing which has specifically targeted hospitals. Despite this, the brutal bombing followed those wounded and defenseless victims and doctors trying to save lives wherever they tried to hide from these barbaric attacks.
The video shows that the Russian forces blew up the cave where the hospital was established. SNHR believes that the Russian government aims to eradicate all trace of the heroic work carried out by the medical personnel to help injured people and save their lives, and to erase the terrible consequences and evidence of the atrocities and crimes carried out by Russian forces in their barbaric bombing of this hospital which is a long way from any city and from military centers.
Democratic countries and free media worldwide must condemn this barbaric act and expose Russia’s crimes in Syria to allow the Russian and international audience to see the reality of their atrocities.
Photo source: Video still taken from a video broadcast by the Zvezda Russian channel. For full video, see this link:
https://youtu.be/mtlS5xhWVbY
