The US's attack on a MSF hospital in Afghanistan, Israeli strikes on Palestinian medical services, along with a number of other recent attacks on aid workers and medical facilities, has led to a recent adoption of UN Resolution 2286 by over 80 member states.
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Security Council Adopts Resolution 2286 (2016), Strongly Condemning Attacks against Medical Facilities, Personnel in Conflict Situations
7685th Meeting (AM)
Security Council
Meetings Coverage
Red Cross, Médecins Sans Frontières Heads, Secretary-General Brief Members
Strongly condemning attacks on medical personnel in conflict situations today, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution demanding an end to impunity for those responsible and respect for international law on the part of all warring parties.
Adopting resolution 2286 (2016), which was co-sponsored by more than 80 Member States, the 15-member Council strongly condemned attacks and threats against the wounded and sick, medical personnel and humanitarian personnel exclusively engaged in medical duties, their means of transport and equipment, as well as hospitals and other medical facilities. It deplored the long-term consequences of such attacks for the civilian populations and health-care systems of the countries concerned.
Also by the text, the Council demanded that all parties to armed conflict comply fully with their obligations under international law, including international human rights law, as applicable, and international humanitarian law, in particular their obligations under the Geneva Conventions of 1949 and their Additional Protocols of 1977 and 2005. It demanded also that all parties to armed conflict facilitate safe and unimpeded passage for medical and humanitarian personnel.
“When so-called surgical strikes are hitting surgical wards, something is deeply wrong,” United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said after the text’s adoption, adding: “Even wars have rules.” Urging all parties to conflict and other relevant actors to heed the Council’s demands, he said “the Council and all Member States must do more than condemn such attacks. They must use every ounce of influence to press parties to respect their obligations.”
Joining the Secretary-General in addressing the Council were the heads of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), entities that he described as reliable partners in providing much-needed care for conflict-affected people in Syria, Yemen, Iraq, South Sudan and other countries.
ICRC President Peter Maurer said 2,400 targeted attacks had been carried out in the last three years against patients and health-care workers, transport and centres in 11 countries. The targeting of medical centres resulted in deep effects in both the immediate and long terms, he said. Bombing hospitals meant hundreds of thousands of people losing access to health care and the erasure in seconds of decades-long efforts to reduce child mortality, improve maternal health and fight disease. “Humanity in war is what we demand,” he emphasized. “Today, with this resolution, you reaffirmed the relevance of the laws of war, the basic humanitarian consensus enshrined in the Geneva Conventions,” he added. “To demand they are respected through practical measures is the most decisive next step this Council can take to ensure humanity in war is a reality and not just an ideal.”
Similarly, MSF President Joanne Liu described the situation in some of the world’s bloodiest conflicts, citing 300 air strikes on Aleppo, Syria, in the last 10 days. In Afghanistan, Central African Republic, South Sudan, Syria, Ukraine and Yemen, hospitals were routinely bombed, raided, looted or burned to the ground, and medical personnel were threatened and patients were shot in their beds. “We will speak out loudly and with force about what we witness in the field,” she declared. Such attacks were described as mistakes, but they amounted to a massive, indiscriminate and disproportionate targeting of civilians in urban settings. While the Security Council was responsible for maintaining peace and security, four of its five permanent members had been associated with coalitions responsible for attacks on health structures over the last year, she noted.
In the ensuing discussion, some Council members described such attacks as war crimes, and others asked for independent investigations into specific incidents.
Malaysia’s representative recalled that hospitals in Gaza had been hit by Israeli strikes in which thousands of civilians had been killed, and that an MSF hospital in Afghanistan had been attacked by the United States military. Such attacks were simply unacceptable, and in violation of the basic principles of international law, she said, noting that the unanimous adoption of resolution 2286 (2016) reflected the Council’s collective response to deteriorating conditions on the ground.
The representative of the United States expressed regret over that country’s air strikes on the MSF hospital, and offered condolences, noting that more than a dozen military personnel had been disciplined for the errors that had led to the bombing. She also voiced regret over last week’s horrific attack in Aleppo, which had killed at least 27 people, saying it was clear that the Syrian regime was deliberately targeting medical workers and facilities.
Venezuela’s representative said it was incomprehensible that such violations of humanitarian law could be considered mere “errors” when they were, in fact, war crimes. They must be investigated impartially, with the perpetrators held accountable. He also expressed grave concern over the use of remote weapons and drones, given the obvious deadly risk of errors that could result in the bombing of hospitals.
The Russian Federation’s representative noted that the Council had, more than once, called upon all concerned parties to take the necessary measures to ensure their safety. However, the Council must be guided by reliable information, he emphasized, adding that reports of the secretary-General were critical in that regard. While there was no doubt that medical personnel worked within their mandate, it was also essential to respect the sovereignty of States.
Also speaking today were representatives of Japan, New Zealand, Spain, Uruguay, United Kingdom, Angola, Ukraine, France, Senegal, China and Egypt.http://www.un.org/press/en/2016/sc12347.doc.htm
More in the link.
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U.N. Security Council Condemns Attacks on Health Workers in War Zones
Warplanes level a hospital in the rebel-held half of Aleppo, Syria, killing one of the city’s last pediatricians. A Saudi-led military coalition bombs a hospital in Yemen. In Afghanistan, American aircraft pummel a hospital mistaken for a Taliban redoubt.
The rules of war, enshrined for decades, require hospitals to be treated as sanctuaries from war — and for health workers to be left alone to do their jobs.
But on today’s battlefields, attacks on hospitals and ambulances, surgeons, nurses and midwives have become common, punctuating what aid workers and United Nations officials describe as a new low in the savagery of war.
On Tuesday, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution to remind warring parties everywhere of the rules, demanding protection for those who provide health care and accountability for violators. The measure urged member states to conduct independent investigations and prosecute those found responsible for violations “in accordance with domestic and international law.”
But the resolution also raised an awkward question: Can the world’s most powerful countries be expected to enforce the rules when they and their allies are accused of flouting them?
Russian warplanes were blamed for the bombing of Syrian health centers, for instance, and Syrian soldiers, backed by the Kremlin, continue to remove lifesaving medicines, even painkillers, from United Nations aid convoys heading into rebel-held areas.
At the same time, Britain and the United States back a Saudi-led coalition that is accused of attacking health facilities in Yemen. China and Russia support the government of Sudan, which is accused of at least two attacks on health facilities supported by Doctors Without Borders, the international medical charity, in Kordofan State.
From the charity’s international president, Dr. Joanne Liu, seated at the Security Council’s horseshoe-shaped table, came the sharpest rebuke to the Council’s five permanent, veto-wielding members.
“You therefore must live up to your extraordinary responsibilities, and set an example for all states,” she said. “I repeat: Stop these attacks.”
Without naming the countries, she criticized the United States — for having refused to submit the American attack in October on her organization’s hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, to an independent international inquiry — just as she scolded Russia for having denied that its warplanes had hit civilian targets in Syria.
“Broad attacks on communities and precise attacks on health facilities are described as mistakes, are denied outright or are simply met with silence,” she said.
Just hours before, a maternity hospital was hit in Aleppo, on the government-held side. Syrian state news media reported fatalities and heavy damage at the hospital and blamed insurgent shelling.
Last Wednesday, airstrikes believed to have been carried out by the Syrian government demolished a hospital in the rebel-held portion of Aleppo, killing dozens of people including one of the city’s last pediatricians.
There is plenty of blame to go around. In 11 of the world’s war zones, between 2011 and 2014, the International Committee of the Red Cross tallied nearly 2,400 acts of violence against those who were trying to provide health care. That works out to two attacks a day.
Peter Maurer, the president of the International Committee of the Red Cross, who attended the Security Council vote, commended members for what he called a “strong” resolution, even if only to remind combatants of longstanding rules of war.
He warned members not to grow accustomed to attacks on hospitals and ambulances. “These are not sad realities we have to get used to,” he said. “They are abominations to fight and trends to roll back.”
The United States said it had punished the American soldiers implicated in the Kunduz hospital bombing. Russia said it could not “corroborate accusations leveled” against Russian forces in Syria.
That the resolution only echoed rules laid out decades ago was not lost on one of its main proponents, Gerard van Bohemen, the ambassador of New Zealand. “These legal requirements already exist,” he said. “Some are among the oldest rules of international humanitarian law. The problem is one of respect and compliance.”
There have been high-profile attacks on health workers in the past.
Serbian troops stormed a hospital in the Croatian town of Vukovar in 1991, removed several hundred patients and executed them. Sri Lankan forces were accused of attacking hospitals in the Tamil Tiger-held towns of the north in 2008 and 2009, during the last few months of the civil war in that country.
In Pakistan, Taliban militants have assassinated dozens of health workers trying to vaccinate children against polio.
Targeting a medical facility is considered a war crime, if proved to be deliberate. That is a difficult legal hurdle, and few prosecutions have been made against warring parties accused of attacking hospitals and health workers.
The Pentagon has said that the strike on the Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz in October was unintentional. British and American officials have increasingly publicly urged their allies in the Saudi-led coalition waging war in Yemen to abide by international law, though they have not called for international inquiries into possible rights violations in Yemen as they have in Syria. A United Nations panel of experts has documented what it described as “widespread” breaches, pointing to airstrikes by the Saudi-led coalition as well as shelling of health facilities by Houthi rebels.
In Yemen, the poorest country in the Middle East, a fourth of all health care facilities were destroyed or shuttered in one year of war, according to the United Nations.
Saudi Arabia was among the co-sponsors of the Security Council resolution, which was delicately worded.
Drafted by Egypt, Japan, New Zealand, Spain and Uruguay, it avoids a direct reference to possible prosecutions by the International Criminal Court, a delicate topic for some countries.
But the resolution cites the statute that created the court, condemns the “prevailing impunity” for attacks on health centers and calls on governments to carry out independent investigations.
It also demands that armed combatants allow unimpeded access to health workers. Those demands have been repeatedly made in Syria — and been ignored. Millions of people living in besieged and hard-to-reach areas have no access to medicines.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/04/wo...l-attacks.html
Much needed, and we need to start holding countries and their militaries more accountable for such behavior (especially our own).