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04/29/2014
The Syrian government is indiscriminately striking civilians and civilian objects in Aleppo with unguided, high-explosive barrel bombs. The attacks continue despite a United Nations Security Council Resolution unanimously passed on February 22, 2014, demanding that all parties in Syria cease the indiscriminate use of barrel bombs and other weapons in populated areas. The UN will meet to discuss its second round of reporting on compliance with the resolution on April 30.
04/29/2014
Cuban doctors working in Venezuela since 2003 epitomize Cuba-Venezuelan mutual solidarity. Joined there by 20,000 other Cuban health workers, 11,000 doctors are caring for patients and teaching medical students. Longstanding objections from Venezuela’s medical establishment are minor irritants in the face of recent violent assaults against Cuban health workers. They occur as part of anti-government protests that since early February have taken lives and damaged infrastructure.
04/29/2014
These days, policeman with AK-47s don't look out of place during a polio immunization campaign in Pakistan. Neither do elite counterterrorism forces staffing impromptu neighborhood checkpoints, while health workers conduct vaccination drives. On a February weekend in Karachi, camouflaged paramilitary soldiers cordoned off a neighborhood known as Gadap Town, shut down two lanes of traffic, and refused entry to all non-residents. Motorbikes were temporarily banned, because of the frequency with which militants use them in drive-by shootings.
04/28/2014
Two women were killed and 2 children sustained injuries, when unidentified men hurled a hand grenade on a house located in the limits of Suru police station today. According to the police sources, in the limits of Suru police station, few unknown armed men threw a hand grenade on the house of a Polio Supervisor Falak Niyaz, as a result of which two women got killed and two children were seriously injured.
04/27/2014
At least 22 people, including 15 local chiefs and three members of staff of the medical charity Doctors Without Borders, were killed in an attack on Nanga Boguila, a town about 280 miles north of the capital Bangui, officials said on Sunday. Some 2,000 French and over 5,000 African peacekeepers are struggling to halt waves of violence that have gripped the country over the last 18 months. Gilles Xavier Nguembassa, a former member of parliament for the area, said four people were killed as the assailants approached the town but most died when Seleka rebels went to an Doctors Without Borders-run health clinic in search of money.
04/26/2014
The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) condemns the killing of three civilians by a gunman at a private hospital in Kabul. UNAMA following a statement said, all three slain were foreigners who selflessly helped people of Afghanistan in need of medical assistance. The gunman is reported to be a security officer and the motive behind the attack is unknown and no organization has claimed responsibility.
04/25/2014
One aid worker and two civilians killed in Afghanistan. Our thoughts and condolences go to their family, their colleagues and friends as well as to all health workers. Once again, ACBAR wants to reiterate its strong condemnation of any attack, intimidation, violence or threats against aid workers in Afghanistan.
04/22/2014
Despite an army of police, vaccination workers in Pakistan are still being murdered in the midst of a public health initiative aimed at vaccinating 8.4 million children in one province against polio and several other diseases in just three months. The Health for All vaccination program, which runs Feb. 2 through April, is targets indigenous wild poliovirus, which is still endemic in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria. Of the three countries, only Pakistan is seeing an increase in cases. In January 2014, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared Peshawar, the capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, “the world's largest reservoir of endemic poliovirus.”
04/17/2014
Last month, First Lady Michelle Obama bestowed one of ten International Women of Courage Awards to Fatimata Touré for her daring work to help women during the brutal occupation of Gao, Mali, in 2012 and 2013. She is head of the Women’s Action, Research, Study, and Training Group (GREFFA) and the leader of the Regional Forum on Reconciliation and Peace in Gao.
04/16/2014
Hundreds of thousands of people are finding it difficult to access basic services such as health care following the emergency relocation of up to 300 aid workers from Myanmar’s Rakhine State. More than 1,000 humanitarian staff have been forced to stop working following an outbreak of violence in Sittwe, the capital of Rakhine, on 26 and 27 March.