The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition condemns the abduction of Red Cross and Red Crescent workers in Syria and demands the release of all who are held. Although four of the workers have been released, three others have not. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, the individuals were traveling to assess medical facilities in the Idlib and to deliver medical supplies. They were in vehicles clearly marked with the ICRC emblem.
Violent interference with the giving of essential health care, in gross violation of human rights and international humanitarian law, has been a terrible dimension of the Syrian conflict. Just last month, the Independent International Commission on the Syrian Arab Republic called these assaults “one of the most alarming features of the conflict.”
Leonard Rubenstein, chair of the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, said, “The health workers must be released, and impunity for such acts must end.”