Attacks on Health

In the last few months, a number of attacks against health workers, medical transports, and facilities have taken place in several countries, like Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen to mention a few. These incidents are taking place in countries with fragile health care systems that are already struggling to treat the numbers of people affected by the ongoing conflicts there. In some cases, the situation is made even worse by the restrictions placed on aid workers, preventing them from getting to the people who need them.

The ongoing air strikes and deliberate targeting of civilians and healthworkers in Yemen are jeopardising humanitarian operations in the country, denying thousands of people basic medical care, the head of Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has warned.

Adnan Ismail worked as a doctor in a Syrian government hospital. But civil war led him to a farm field where he and friends labored nights in secret to build a makeshift rebel-run clinic. For a year, Dr. Ismail helped dig walls and stairs to fashion an underground bunker that was eventually equipped for surgery, he said. Dr. Adnan Ismail led a secret life tending to Syrian rebels and civilians hurt by government forces.

More than 85 percent of health workers in Turkey are subjected to violence at least once during their professional life, according to a recent survey conducted among the health workers by the health union, Sağlık-Sen. Health workers who have been exposed to violence at least once during their professional life made up 86.8 percent, with 81.4 percent of respondents saying they were exposed to violence last year, according to a Sağlık-Sen survey conducted among 1,300 health workers in 15 difference provinces across Turkey via face to face interviews.

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.