MSF

Almost two dozen people, including civilian rescuers and an ambulance driver from an MSF-affiliated hospital, have reportedly been killed after Saudi-led coalition planes carried out repeated airstrikes on the same target in Sa’ada province, Yemen.

Barcelona/Gaziantep – An upsurge in fighting and bombing over the past week in northern Syria’s Azaz district, near the Turkish border, is jeopardising medical activities in the few hospitals and health posts that are still functioning, says international medical organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), warning that it may be forced to close its own hospital in the Aleppo province. The increased violence has also paralyzed the delivery of humanitarian aid – which was already limited – to more than half a million people in the area.

AMSTERDAM/TAIZ, YEMEN—Airstrikes carried out yesterday by the Saudi-led coalition hit a clinic in southern Yemen run by the international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and wounded nine people, including two MSF staff members. According to local sources, at 11:20 a.m. local time on December 2, three airstrikes targeted a park in Taiz city's Al Houban district, about two kilometers from MSF's tented clinic. The MSF team immediately evacuated the Al Houban clinic and informed the Saudi-led coalition that their jet planes were mounting an attack nearby. The clinic itself then came under attack.

In the poorest country in the Arabian Peninsula, more than 1,300 people living with HIV/AIDS are receiving antiretroviral (ARV) treatment, around half of them in the capital, Sana’a. With the outbreak of war in March 2015, ensuring the continuity of the treatment is a critical challenge.

The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition supports MSF's request for the International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission to investigate the attack on its hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, that resulted in the deaths of patients and staff. The Commission was created under the Additional Protocols of the Geneva Conventions specifically to investigate alleged violations of international humanitarian law and report on findings.