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The shooting killed at least 13 people and injured 27 in an area controlled by Turkish-backed fighters.
At least 13 people, including two medical staff, have been killed and several injured in the northern Syrian city of Afrin in two separate artillery attacks controlled by a Turkish-backed fighter, activist and aid group on Sunday.
The first attack hit a residential area, and the second hit a hospital shortly afterwards, civil defense sources told Reuters news agency. Video footage on social media showed the victims among the rubble of al-Shifa hospital after the attack.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the bombing, which came from areas where Syrian government troops and Kurdish-led fighters were deployed.
The governor of Hatay province in Turkey, who crossed the border from Afrin, and the Turkish Ministry of Defense also said the bombing killed 13 civilians and wounded 27, adding that rockets and artillery fire were fired at the hospital. The governor’s office has blamed the attack on Syrian Kurdish groups.
Ankara condemned the attack, saying it was launched by the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which forms the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The SDF said it was not behind the attacks.
Ankara believes the YPG is a “terrorist” group affiliated with the Turkish separatist group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The PKK calls the United States and the European Union a “terrorist group.”
The death toll from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in Britain reached 18. Al Jazeera was unable to verify the conflicting data of the dead.
“The blast targeted several areas of the town and sent them to hospital,” Rami Abdurrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory, told AFP news agency.
The artillery fire broke out in the northern province of Aleppo, “militias loyal to Iran and the United Kingdom [Syrian] the regime is widespread, close to the areas led by the Kurdish forces, ”he added.
The Syrian Medical Association of America (SAMS), a support group that supports health centers in opposition areas, confirmed that the hospital’s polyclinic department was targeted by two missiles that destroyed the emergency and delivery rooms.
SAMS said two of the 13 dead were hospital staff and two ambulance drivers. Eleven workers were injured.
SAMS said the hospital was one of the largest facilities in northern Syria that provided thousands of medical services each month and its coordinates were shared as part of a United Nations-led conflict mechanism.
Afrin YPG fighters were largely cleared through a military operation in Turkey in 2018. Ankara now maintains a large military presence in the area, deploying thousands of troops.
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