Resources

Three and a half years of conflict in Yemen have led to the near total collapse of the country’s health system. More than half of health facilities are no longer functional and 16.4 million people do not have access to adequate health services.This brief by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition focuses on how attacks on health workers, facilities, and infrastructure—at least 40 this year—have contributed to the cholera outbreak and famine-like conditions and provides recommendations for the parties to conflict, the UN Security Council, and others to avert humanitarian and health catastrophe.

This report by Médecins du Monde France (MDM) delves into the unprecedented large number of incidents affecting health workers, facilities, and ambulances in Gaza since March 30, 2018. MDM's report presents insight into the violence health workers have suffered during the seven weeks between March 30 and May 15, based on the information provided by Palestinian health NGOs and their staff. The intention is to offer a better understanding of the incidents occurred along the border area, to frame these incidents within the different applicable legal frameworks, and to portray the consequences they have had on the overall provision of health services. Simultaneously, this report also stresses the importance of improving the safety protocols of health professionals working in Gaza and the responsibilities each actor has.

This report by the University of Essex Human Rights Centre, the Center for Public Health and Human Rights at the John Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, is the first of its kind to review laws, prosecutions, and other forms of state-inflicted violence in multiple countries against health workers for treating alleged terrorists or enemies. Of 16 countries reviewed, at least ten have laws that have been or could be used to prosecute the provision of health care to people in need as a form of supporting terrorism. The research was requested by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, Dainius Pūras.

In this new article, Rohini Haar and colleagues describe an extraordinary field-based data collection effort conducted amidst the ongoing war in Syria, spearheaded by the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) and supported by a team of mainly United States-based researchers. The resulting database records the deaths of 112 health workers and 185 patients that occurred as part of more than 200 attacks on healthcare facilities and transport vehicles in the governorates of Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, and Homs in 2016. The paper also matches the SAMS-documented events against those recorded in a separate but similar database maintained by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) using open-source methods. The SAMS–PHR overlap is substantial but not complete, suggesting that there are further events not captured by either data-gathering project.

In recognition of the brutality of today’s armed conflicts and the lack of respect for the fundamental rules of international humanitarian law, the Agenda for Humanity presented at the World Humanitarian Summit called for greater commitment and action to ensure the essential needs of affected populations are met and for full respect and protection of humanitarian and medical missions. This analytical paper prepared by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition summarizes progress by 45 stakeholders on more than 180 commitments made at the summit. Despite positive examples, many challenges remain to ensure people in need have access to—and there is protection of—humanitarian and medical missions.

This report by coalition member Watchlist on Children and Armed Conflict highlights how the targeting of medical facilities and personnel in 2015 and 2016 has had devastating impacts on children’s health. The report details attacks on medical facilities and personnel by parties to the conflict and describes how these attacks have compounded challenges to children’s health, already exacerbated by the escalation of armed conflict. The report provides policy recommendations to key stakeholders, including the Saudi Arabia-led coalition, the Houthis, humanitarian actors, Member States, and United Nations agencies to strengthen children’s right to health care.

In its 3rd annual report, the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition found that during 2015 and the first three months of 2016, deliberate or indiscriminate strikes on health care have killed medical workers and patients, decimated medical infrastructure, and robbed countless civilians of vital medical care in 19 countries around the world. 

Attacks on medical facilities, health workers, and patients have occurred in at least 17 countries undergoing conflict and civil unrest since January 2014, Human Rights Watch and the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition said in a joint report issued today. The report was released at the annual meeting of health ministers from around the world in Geneva from May 18-26, 2015.

This two-page brochure summarizes the mission and activities of the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition.

ACBAR published a special briefing paper to the government of Afghanistan for the protection of aid workers. Since January 2015, 49 aid workers were killed, 38 wounded, and 30 kidnapped in the country. The paper is part of the Brussels Series, in preparation for the Brussels Conference, and it details a set of recommendations to move forward.

The consequences of the international community’s failure to protect Syrians from systematic and repeated violations of both human rights and humanitarian law have been devastating. Yet, one in particular stands out: the erosion of the long-established principle that neither militaries nor armed groups can target medical workers and the health care system for attacks. Since 2011, the Syrian government has systematically violated this principle and is using attacks on medical workers and facilities as a weapon of war.

This paper presents a framework from the lessons distilled from Japanese experiences of supporting health workforce system development in Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and Cambodia.

This film tells the story of Mirta Nubia Rosero, the only health worker in a remote village in south-western Colombia. After five decades of conflict, unexploded landmines and remnants of war lie hidden in the ground.

Physicians for Human Rights–Israel commissioned a fact-finding mission to investigate the Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip that began in July 2014. Eight independent international medical experts gathered evidence on the types, causes, and patterns of injuries and attacks; attacks on medical teams and facilities; evacuation; impact of the conflict on the health care system; and longer-term issues. This report presents their findings, including that medical teams were killed or injured in the course of evacuating the injured and that at least one apparent deliberate attack on a hospital resulted in several people killed and injured.

This report from the Syrian American Medical Society presents volunteer physicians’ insights on the danger they and their colleagues faced while treating patients, performing life-saving surgeries, training personnel, and conducting assessments.

The Trauma Management Program (TMP) was developed to improve the capacity of local health workers to deliver effective trauma care. This report illustrates a method to increase the capacity of indigenous health workers to manage traumatic injuries.

This report shows the devastation on Bahrain’s health system resulting from the Government of Bahrain’s continued assault on doctors, patients, and the health care system.

This account from one of the nurses and midwives who returned to Somaliland after the civil war relates what has been done to train a new generation, improve standards of care, develop training programs, and foster regulation.

This paper presents findings from a review of three global sources of human rights reports in armed conflicts for 2003–08 and in-depth reports on violations committed in armed conflict during 1989–2008.

This report discusses issues related to violence against health workers, patients, and hospitals during armed conflict and the impact violence has on health workers and the subsequent lack of health care for those in need.

This video provides a brief introduction to the principle of medical neutrality, its foundation in medical ethics and international law, violations of medical neutrality, and steps that can be taken to protect and promote the principle.

This article outlines the issue and a new campaign that aims to raise awareness and improve conditions on the ground for health workers and facilities in conflict zones.

This document outlines the role health workers play in areas suffering from severe crises and makes the case for investing in human resources for health as central to health system recovery and improved health outcomes.

This study looks at how violence affects the delivery of health care including attacks on patients, health workers, and facilities, and on medical vehicles.

In this issue of the Red Cross Red Crescent Magazine, contributors outline the global challenges of delivering health care during conflict or other situations of violence and health care after natural disasters.