Report: Fire kills 3 inside hospital in Syria’s Aleppo

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — An electrical short circuit caused a fire in a hospital in northern Syria early Tuesday that killed three patients, state media reported.

The fire department chief in the city of Aleppo was quoted by the SANA news agency as saying the blaze started in a room at the private Andalus Surgical Hospital. It killed two elderly women and a man, who died of smoke inhalation.

SANA said other patients were transferred to different hospitals in Aleppo, Syria’s largest city and a former commercial center.

Syria’s medical sector was hard-hit by the country’s conflict that began in March 2011 and has killed about half a million people and left large parts of the country destroyed.