UN authorises investigation into attacks on health facilities and schools in Syria’s last rebel-held area

The Secretary General of the United Nations has authorised an investigation into attacks on health facilities and schools in Syria’s last rebel-held area.

Since late April, hundreds of people in Idlib have been killed and key infrastructure targeted in a regime offensive backed by Russian air power. The White Helmet rescue organisation today said that 15 of their rescue centres had been targeted and seven volunteers killed.

Under an agreement signed last September, Idlib is supposed to be a de-escalation zone. But UN officials have questioned whether information being supplied to President Assad’s forces to prevent attacks on civilian facilities was actually being used to target them.

Yesterday, the United Nations Security Council heard the testimony of Susannah Sirkin, the Policy Director of Physicians for Human Rights. She described the assault on healthcare facilities as a “deliberate, inhumane and illegal strategy of war”.  She joins me now from Boston in the US.