Missile strikes on Syria schools, hospitals kill 50: UN

irstrikes have hit at least five medical facilities and two schools in northern Syria, killing 50 people, the United Nations said on Monday, calling the attacks "blatant violations of international law".

Turkish medics carry a wounded Syrian to a hospital in Kilis.

The United States also condemned the attacks on civilian targets, which it said included two hospitals in the Aleppo area - a Medecins Sans Frontieres facility and the Women's and Children's Hospital in Aziz city.

The upsurge in violence comes just days after international powers, meeting in Munich, proposed a "cessation of hostilities" within a week as a step towards a permanent ceasefire. Neither the United States nor the United Nations identified who carried out the airstrikes, but Russia has been waging an air campaign in and around Aleppo in support of a Syrian government ground offensive.

State Department spokesperson John Kirby said the latest development "casts doubt on Russia's willingness and/or ability to help bring to a stop the continued brutality of the Assad regime against its own people".

"That the Assad regime and its supporters would continue these attacks, without cause and without sufficient regard for international obligations to safeguard innocent lives, flies in the face of the unanimous calls by the ISSG, including in Munich, to avoid attacks on civilians," he said.

AFP photos of the MSF hospital hit by an air strike showed it had partially collapsed in the attack.
The surrounding area was strewn with twisted metal, cinderblocks and detritus from the damaged building.
"The destruction of the hospital leaves the local population of around 40 000 people without access to medical services in an active zone of conflict," said MSF Syria operations chief Massimiliano Rebaudengo.