Russia accused after airstrike kills 22 kids in attack on UK-funded Syrian schools

RUSSIA is accused of bombing three schools in Syria funded by UK aid, killing 22 children.

Development Secretary Priti Patel slammed the “barbaric assault on the world’s humanity”

Ms Patel hit out after 35 were killed in the bombardment of the Ahmad Kalaji school complex in Hass, in the Idlib province on Wednesday.

The UK pay nine teachers’ salaries at the three schools as part of a £12.6 million education programme, the Sun can reveal.

At least 22 children and six teachers died in the attack according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

International Development Secretary Priti Patel hit out last night: “Schools should be safe places to learn, not transformed into places of slaughter.”

“These airstrikes are a barbaric assault on the world’s humanity. The daily atrocities cannot continue.”

She added: “It is time the Syrian regime, and their Russian backers end this conflict.”

A source at the Department for International Development told The Sun: “At around 10:45am on Wednesday at least seven airstrikes hit a complex of three UK-funded schools.

“The raid hit the Hass school for boys, the Hass school for girls and the Ahmad Kalaji school as well as the surrounding area in Idlib province of Northern Syria.”

They added: “The UK has provided funding to a number of teachers in these schools to help ensure that 1,500 Syrian children would have the chance of an education.”

Britain’s aid budget has contributed £12.6 million to an education programme which helps 7,000 teachers across 800 schools in opposition-held Idlib and Aleppo provinces in Syria.

UK taxpayers help nine teachers with £82 per month each at the three schools hit in the strike.

Last night DfID said the  the project has provided access to education to 275,000 Syrian kids, half of them girls.

Unicef’s executive director Anthony Lake said: “This is a tragedy. It is an outrage. And if deliberate, it is a war crime.”

He added: “This latest atrocity may be the deadliest attack on a school since the war began more than five years ago.”

Yesterday Russian diplomats refused to rule out their war planes were responsible.

Their ambassador to the UN said: “It’s horrible, I hope we were not involved.”

Vitaly Churkin added: “It’s the easiest thing for me to say no, but I’m a responsible person, so I need to see what my ministry of defence is going to say.”

A Member of the Syrian Civil Defence, known as the White Helmets, evacuates a child following reported government shelling

But a Whitehall source pointed the finger of blame at the Kremlin, saying: “After Russia’s past history of murdering civilians in this conflict it would be difficult to believe they were not involved.

Foreign Secrtary Boris Johnson tweeted yesterday that the “world will be sickened” by the bombing and Russia “must end the butchery”.

Last night the White House said: “We don’t know yet that it was the Assad regime or the Russians that carried out the airstrike, but we know it was one of the two.

"Even if it was the Assad regime that carried it out, the Assad regime is only in a position to carry out those kind of attacks because they are supported by the Russian government.”

A Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman claimed Moscow had nothing to do with the strikes.