ALEPPO, Syria, May 3 (UPI) — At least three people died Tuesday when a rocket heavily damaged a hospital in the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo.
The semi-government-run SANA news agency reported three women were killed, and 17 other women and children were injured in Aleppo’s Muhafaza district. The hospital bombing was part of a larger rocket attack that killed at least a dozen other civilians in residential neighborhoods.
The Syrian government blamed the rocket attacks on insurgent Islamist militants, including the al-Qaida-linked al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham and Jaish al-Islam. More than 250 people have been killed in Aleppo in less than two weeks following a flare-up of violence.
Representatives of the Syrian regime under President Bashar al-Assad and from a consolidated group of rebels are in Geneva holding talks to end hostilities. Although a shaky cease-fire was established in February, hostilities in Aleppo have threatened to terminate the truce.
About two-thirds of recent deaths in Aleppo occurred in areas held by rebels. Syria has been blighted by a complex civil war in which the Islamic State, the Syrian government, and multiple Syrian moderate rebel and Islamist groups fight for control of territory. The February cease-fire agreement does not include the Islamic State.
