OBOY DOCTORS ARE ON THE RUN IN THIS COUNTRY

Some of the heaviest bombardment so far on Aleppo has left rebel-held parts of the Syrian city virtually without medical facilities, observers say.

The World Health Organization says all makeshift hospitals there are out of service, after five days of air and artillery strikes by government forces.
Other reports suggest some that hospitals are operational but people are too frightened to use them.

A White House statement called the assault on hospitals "heinous".
Dozens have died since a government assault on Aleppo resumed this week.
On Saturday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a UK-based monitoring group, said that at least 27 civilians had been killed in recent government strikes on rebel-held eastern Aleppo.
Medics have in the past been able to bring field hospitals back into operation after strikes, but the lack of supplies is now so severe that this is becoming harder, Reuters news agency reports.
The recent bombardment has left streets deserted, with people trying to shelter in their homes.

 
The SOHR says the strikes have been so massive that residents are frightened to use medical facilities.
Reuters quotes the WHO's representative in Syria, Elizabeth Hoff, as saying on Saturday that NGOs based over the border in Turkey "confirmed today that all hospitals in eastern Aleppo are out of service".

Food running out

On Friday the UN envoy for Syria, Jan Egeland, said eastern Aleppo faced a "bleak moment" with supplies low and winter coming.
"My understanding is that virtually all warehouses are now empty and tens of thousands of families are running out of food," he told Reuters.

Also on Friday, a volunteer with the White Helmets Civil Defence force told agency AFP news agency that he had "never heard such intense artillery bombardments".
His team had been unable to respond to an emergency call because "the shells are falling on the street", he said.
Aleppo, once Syria's commercial and industrial hub, has been divided roughly in two since 2012, with the government controlling the west and rebels the east.
On 22 September, two weeks after encircling the east and reimposing a siege on its estimated 275,000 residents, the army launched an all-out assault to take full control of the city with the help of Iranian-backed militias and the Russian air force.

By the end of October, the strikes had killed more than 700 civilians in the east, while rocket fire had left scores dead in the west, according to the UN.
The air strikes resumed on Tuesday after a three-week moratorium declared by the government's ally Russia ended, with more than 100 people reported killed in the past five days.
Russia says its air force is active in other parts of Syria, but not operating over Aleppo.
A statement by White House national security adviser Susan Rice condemned what she called "heinous actions".
"The Syrian regime and its allies, Russia in particular, bear responsibility for the immediate and long-term consequences these actions have caused in Syria and beyond," she said, adding that Russia must "immediately" cease violence and allow humanitarian aid.