A military offensive by the Syrian government and its allies is advancing in southern Idlib governorate, displacing nearly 390,000 people in the last two months.The humanitarian situation is deteriorating as people are squeezed between the Turkish border and the advancing front lines, and hospitals are under threat from airstrikes and ground forces.

The Maarat al Numan hospital, one of the largest hospitals in the southern Idlib area, was recently put out of service because of bombing. On January 29, an armed opposition group stormed the Idlib Central Hospital, a major health facility in the area where Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) recently donated surgery and first aid kits, occupying the facility despite the protests of the medical staff. That same night, Ariha hospital was hit by multiple airstrikes, destroying much of the building and its warehouse. Most of the hospital's drugs, supplies, and stock of fuel were damaged or lost and its pharmacy destroyed while dozens of people wounded by the bombing rushed into the facility for treatment.

A doctor managing a health facility recently supported by MSF provided the following account:

“The bombings of medical facilities in the area are happening all the time these days. The hospital that I manage is still standing, but just in the past few weeks, five facilities around us were partially or fully destroyed and went out of service.

We are completely overwhelmed by the number of patients who would have normally been treated in these hospitals but must now be handled by us instead. We work nonstop, even until late at night, to operate on and treat all the people coming in, and we see our supplies decreasing drastically, not knowing how or if we'll manage to get more. We also operate in constant fear that we might be the next ones hit.”

MSF is increasing its assistance to displaced families in Idlib governorate, providing drinking water in camps and distributing essential items such as blankets and heating supplies, but the needs are tremendous and only increasing.

Across northwestern Syria, MSF teams provide maternal health care, general health care and treatment for noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) through mobile clinics in addition to running a specialized burns unit that provides surgery, skin grafts, dressings, physiotherapy and psychological support. MSF provides distance-support to primary and secondary health care in several hospitals and clinics around Idlib and Aleppo and has co-management partnerships with three hospitals. We distribute relief items and improve water and sanitation systems as well as support regular vaccination activities and help patients who underwent kidney transplants.

To ensure independence from political pressures, MSF receives no government funding for its work in Syria.

Read the rest of today’s urgent update here.