Syria

On April 24 Foreign Affairs published an article by Leonard S. Rubenstein, “Unhealthy Practice: Medical Work in Conflict Zones Is Compromised.” For the second time in less than six months, Rubenstein writes, polio vaccine workers in Pakistan have come under fire. For the gunmen, killing health workers has been seen as a legitimate response to a nefarious extension of Western power. For the CIA, faux vaccine campaigns have sometimes been justified as part of the war on terror. Both sides are wrong, he says: denying or providing health care should never be an instrument of statecraft.

The New York Times published a letter from Leonard Rubenstein in response to the March 24 article, “In Syria’s Civil War, Doctors Find Themselves in Cross Hairs.” “Syria’s arrest, imprisonment, torture and murder of doctors and nurses for providing medical care to its enemies warrants not only condemnation but also referral to the United Nations Security Council for prosecution for war crimes,” Rubenstein wrote.

A UN commission of inquiry on Syria issued a report on the deteriorating situation of human rights in the country. Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic includes language relating to health workers and facilities.

LONDON (AlertNet) - More than half Syria's 88 hospitals have been damaged in the country's bitter civil war, and nearly one third are out of service, making it difficult for people to get medical care, Syrian and U.N. health officials have reported. December data from Syria's health ministry, released by the World Health Organization (WHO) on Wednesday, shows that 48 hospitals have been damaged, of which 27 are no longer operating. Syria's 1,919 public health centres have been less severely affected - around 10 percent are damaged and 6 percent closed.