No escape from Aleppo for the critically wounded

With hospitals in rebel-controlled eastern Aleppo coming under fire, the most severely injured patients in the besieged city have – until recently – been transferred to Turkey for better, safer care.

But now, with the city under siege, such transfers have become impossible.

“We can’t send the wounded to either rebel parts of the countryside or Turkey, because the city is completely besieged,” Hassan Fattouh, a paramedic at Zarzour hospital, told Al Jazeera on Saturday. “There’s no way out.”

One of Zarzour’s warehouses was bombed in June, destroying much of its stock of medicines, while other hospitals in eastern Aleppo have been targeted by government and Russian bombs in an attempt to drive opposition groups out of the city.

The situation has trapped seriously injured people in a city whose conditions are deteriorating rapidly.

“The siege of eastern Aleppo has left people trapped and struggling to survive, with the only road into non-government-held areas cut off,” Doctors Without Borders (MSF), which works with Zarzour and other hospitals in Aleppo, noted in a recent news release.

Read More- al Jazeera

Image courtesy of Reuters