Medics coming under fire in conflicts
Source: Agencies |
August 11, 2011, Thursday
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HOSPITALS, health care workers and ambulances are increasingly targeted in armed conflicts, depriving millions of sick and wounded of treatment, the International Committee of the Red Cross said yesterday.
The aid agency, which delivers supplies and collects the wounded and dead from battlefields, called for a halt to assaults on medical facilities and personnel.
Yves Daccord, ICRC director-general, said: "Hospitals in Sri Lanka and Somalia have been shelled, ambulances in Libya shot at, paramedics in Colombia killed, and wounded people in Afghanistan forced to languish for hours in vehicles held up at checkpoints."
The ICRC has documented security incidents in 16 countries that disrupted delivery of health care, many of them deliberate attacks violating international humanitarian law, according to its report "Healthcare in Danger: Making the Case."
British war surgeon Robin Coupland, who led the research, said: "People die in large numbers not because they are direct victims of a roadside bomb or a shooting, but because the ambulance does not get there in time, because health personnel are prevented from doing their work, because hospitals are themselves targets of attacks or simply because the environment is too dangerous."
Violence, often accompanied by looting, means doctors and nurses leave their jobs, hospitals run out of drugs or fuel to run generators, and vaccination campaigns are halted.
This leaves patients even more vulnerable to diseases that can break out in conflict areas, such as polio and cholera. In Libya, a health care system that relied on foreign workers was crippled when the civil war prompted an exodus, leaving hospitals in Misrata and Benghazi critically understaffed.
Under the Geneva Conventions, the wounded and sick, whether civilians or combatants, must receive prompt medical treatment. However, the ICRC said: "In conflicts all over the world, combatants overlook their responsibility to care for civilians caught in the crossfire."
Hospitals have been used to store weapons or launch attacks, contravening the principle that they should be neutral and provide care to all patients, the report said.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Somalia have suffered some of the worst attacks against medical centers and staff, it said.
Somalia lost only the second batch of medical graduates in 20 years when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a university ceremony in Mogadishu in December 2009, killing 22.
In Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents in Kandahar used an ambulance packed with explosives last April to kill 12 people at a police training base, the ICRC said.
The Arab Spring has brought fresh abuses, according to the ICRC. "In recent unrest in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, protesters have been too afraid to use medical facilities for fear their wounds will identify them and provoke harsh reprisals," it said.
The aid agency, which delivers supplies and collects the wounded and dead from battlefields, called for a halt to assaults on medical facilities and personnel.
Yves Daccord, ICRC director-general, said: "Hospitals in Sri Lanka and Somalia have been shelled, ambulances in Libya shot at, paramedics in Colombia killed, and wounded people in Afghanistan forced to languish for hours in vehicles held up at checkpoints."
The ICRC has documented security incidents in 16 countries that disrupted delivery of health care, many of them deliberate attacks violating international humanitarian law, according to its report "Healthcare in Danger: Making the Case."
British war surgeon Robin Coupland, who led the research, said: "People die in large numbers not because they are direct victims of a roadside bomb or a shooting, but because the ambulance does not get there in time, because health personnel are prevented from doing their work, because hospitals are themselves targets of attacks or simply because the environment is too dangerous."
Violence, often accompanied by looting, means doctors and nurses leave their jobs, hospitals run out of drugs or fuel to run generators, and vaccination campaigns are halted.
This leaves patients even more vulnerable to diseases that can break out in conflict areas, such as polio and cholera. In Libya, a health care system that relied on foreign workers was crippled when the civil war prompted an exodus, leaving hospitals in Misrata and Benghazi critically understaffed.
Under the Geneva Conventions, the wounded and sick, whether civilians or combatants, must receive prompt medical treatment. However, the ICRC said: "In conflicts all over the world, combatants overlook their responsibility to care for civilians caught in the crossfire."
Hospitals have been used to store weapons or launch attacks, contravening the principle that they should be neutral and provide care to all patients, the report said.
Afghanistan, Iraq, Sri Lanka and Somalia have suffered some of the worst attacks against medical centers and staff, it said.
Somalia lost only the second batch of medical graduates in 20 years when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a university ceremony in Mogadishu in December 2009, killing 22.
In Afghanistan, Taliban insurgents in Kandahar used an ambulance packed with explosives last April to kill 12 people at a police training base, the ICRC said.
The Arab Spring has brought fresh abuses, according to the ICRC. "In recent unrest in Bahrain, Syria and Yemen, protesters have been too afraid to use medical facilities for fear their wounds will identify them and provoke harsh reprisals," it said.
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