|
 Samer Jabbour, an associate professor at the American University of
Beirut's Faculty of Health Sciences who co-led the study, said 2016
was the most dangerous year for health workers in Syria, with
multiple attacks including killings, imprisonment, abduction and
torture.
"The international community has left these violations of
international humanitarian and human rights law largely unanswered,
despite their enormous consequences," he said. "There have been
repudiated denunciations, but little action."
Published to mark the sixth anniversary of the Syrian crisis, the
study used data from multiple sources to assess the conflict’s
impact on health care and health workers. It found a "weaponisation"
of health care in Syria in which people's need for it was used
against them by denying access.
The study estimated 814 medical personnel were killed between March
2011 and February 2017 but Jabbour said this was probably "a gross
underestimate" due to difficulties in gathering and corroborating
evidence.
Researchers said there were almost 200 attacks on health centers
last year alone and said a key feature of the weaponisation of
healthcare is the repeated targeting of medical facilities with the
aim of shutting them down.
Attacks on hospitals and health facilities increased to an estimated
199 in 2016, from just over 90 in 2012.
Kafr Zita Cave Hospital in Hama has been bombed 33 times since 2014,
including six times this year, the study found. M10, an underground
hospital in eastern Aleppo, was attacked 19 times in three years,
and destroyed in October 2016.
"Over time, targeting has become more frequent, more obvious, and
more geographically widespread. To the best of our knowledge, this
level of targeting health facilities has not occurred in any
previous war," Jabbour said.
The researchers called for urgent action by policymakers, noting the
World Health Organization (WHO) now monitors attacks but they
suggest this does not go far enough since it only counts the strikes
and does not document perpetrators.
[to top of second column] |
Karl Blanchet, who was not involved in the study but is director of
the Health in Humanitarian Crises Centre at the London School of
Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, said the findings raise a serious issue
which affects other countries, too.
"Syria is just the tip of the iceberg. In Afghanistan and Yemen
today, international humanitarian organizations ...report attacks on
health facilities every week. Patients have been shot while
traveling in ambulances in Colombia, ambulances are used in suicide
attacks in Afghanistan, doctors are murdered in Somalia, and
hospitals bombed in Afghanistan, Yemen and Libya,” he said in an
emailed comment.
The experts called for stronger national and international
legislation to protect healthcare workers in conflicts, and urged UN
agencies to advocate for health workers, resist pressure by
governments to follow the official line, and strengthen capacity to
deliver medical support across conflict lines.
(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Julia Glover)
[© 2017 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2017 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
 |
