Fire at clinic in Syria kills 27, mostly children: state media

Damascus

A fire at a small clinic in northeast Syria yesterday killed 27 people, mostly children, and injured about 30 others, official media said.

 State news agency SANA, citing police, said dry branches had caught fire and the blaze spread to a fuel tank, which exploded.

 "At least 27 people were killed ... and at least 30 people are being treated for burns," it said, citing a doctor at the scene.

 It said the clinic had also suffered "significant material damage".

State television said most of the victims of the blaze at the Maysalun clinic in the majority Kurdish city of Qamishli were children.

 Meanwhile, the UN envoy to Syria condemned regime bombing of civilian areas as "totally unacceptable" after more than 140 people were killed in a day of heavy air raids.

 "The news of aerial bombing by Syrian helicopters on a civilian area of the Aleppo neighbourhood of Al-Shaar deserves the most strong international condemnation," UN envoy Staffan de Mistura said in a statement.

 "The use of barrel bombs must stop," he said. "All evidence shows that the overwhelming majority of the civilian victims in the Syrian conflict have been caused by the use of such indiscriminate aerial weapons."

 He said it was "totally unacceptable that the Syrian airforce attacks its own territory in an indiscriminate way, killing its own citizens."