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Protecting Health-Care Facilities during the Upcoming Electoral Process

Wednesday, March 19, 2014
In the preparation for the upcoming elections of the spring 2014, the government of Afghanistan published a list of 173 health facilities designated as polling stations. First and foremost ACBAR members acknowledge that the upcoming election process is a civilian political process, thus non-military, and therefore shouldn’t be targeted under International Humanitarian Law.

Paid Only in Bullets for Saving the Future

Monday, March 17, 2014
She had lost too much blood. Four bullets had ripped through her. A surgery was under way and they could not use anaesthesia. Salma Jaffar, the sole survivor of an attack on a polio immunisation team in Qayyumabad, vividly remembers the searing pain as the doctors cut and sewed her up. For 22 days she stayed in the intensive care unit wondering who would pay her medical expenses. The health department owes her two months’ salary and the meagre stipend for vaccination, Rs250 a day, has also not been paid since August.

Activists: Burma's Foreign Aid Group Ban Puts Thousands at Risk

Monday, March 10, 2014
SITTWE, BURMA — In western Burma’s Rakhine state, authorities asked international aid group Doctors Without Borders (known by its French name Medecins Sans Frontieres or MSF) to cease operations after accusations of aid bias. Activists say the ban will leave nearly 700,000 people without access to much needed medical care in the country's second-most impoverished region.

Aid Workers, More on the Front Lines, Suffer Increased Attacks: Interview with Abby Stoddard

Friday, March 7, 2014
Aid worker attacks and attacks against civilian aid operations were at their highest levels last year, said Abby Stoddard, senior program adviser for humanitarian action at New York University’s Center on International Cooperation and a partner with Humanitarian Outcomes, an independent research group. Preliminary numbers show 172 major attacks on aid workers in 2013; the previous peak year was 2008, when there were 165 attacks.

Aid Groups Warn of "Catastrophic" Health Crisis in CAR

Saturday, March 8, 2014
With clashes still continuing in the Central African Republic, aid groups say the health and humanitarian situation looks set to deteriorate even further. Andrew Green reports. There is no guarantee of safety for many thousands of people living in the Central African Republic (CAR), let alone access to health care or other basic services. Months of ongoing clashes between rival militias have left at least 2000 people dead and forced 700 000 others to flee their homes for safety.

Collapse of Syrian Health System Puts Children's Lives at Risk

Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Syria’s shattered health system is forcing health workers to engage in brutal medical practices and a series of epidemics have left millions of children exposed to a plethora of deadly diseases, Save the Children says in a new report. The report, ‘A Devastating Toll: the Impact of Three Years of War on the Health of Syria’s Children’, sheds light on a broken health system and its consequences: children not just dying from violent means but from diseases that would previously either have been treatable or prevented.

Medical Services: A Priority for the Colombian Government

Thursday, February 13, 2014
In Colombia, health-care providers have their own distinctive and protective emblem called the “misión médica”, a term that encompasses medical services as a whole. In August 2002, the promotion and use of this emblem to identify medical personnel, facilities and vehicles became a national priority when the Ministry of Health and Social Protection issued a decree stipulating that medical services must be protected.

Attacks on Medical Care in Syria

Friday, February 28, 2014
Attacks on Syria's medical community and infrastructure have devastated the health-care system. Government forces – and sometimes opposition groups – have deliberately targeted medical professionals, hospitals, ambulances, and supplies, preventing untold numbers of people from getting medical care and stopping medical professionals from providing services when they are critically needed.

Medical Care Under Fire in South Sudan

Wednesday, February 26, 2014
As entire towns in South Sudan suffer devastating attacks, medical care has also come under fire, with patients shot in their beds, wards burned to the ground, medical equipment looted, and, in one case, an entire hospital destroyed, the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) announced today.

Aid Group in Afghanistan Says Many Still Lack Access to Health Care

Tuesday, February 25, 2014
KABUL, Afghanistan — The patients in the four hospitals run by Doctors Without Borders in Afghanistan are the lucky ones, by all accounts, having arrived at well-stocked facilities that maintain international standards with scrupulously free care. But when the French medical aid organization, also known as Medecins Sans Frontieres, surveyed 800 of those patients last year, the results depicted a dismaying picture of unmet health care needs.

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