By Kieran Guilbert
LONDON – Health workers in countries torn by civil unrest and conflict – particularly Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria – need greater protection against attacks on medical facilities, staff and patients, rights groups and aid agencies said on Wednesday.
Targeted attacks are destroying health systems and infrastructure, forcing health workers to flee and preventing children from getting vaccinations, Human Rights Watch (HRW) and the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition said in a report.
Governments and non-state armed groups must do more to prevent attacks on medical staff and facilities and hold the perpetrators accountable, the report said.
“Instead of being protected, medical care is actually a target,” said Donna McKay, executive director of Physicians for Human Rights, a member of the coalition.
“The toll of assaults on health in almost two dozen countries shocks the conscience and demands a global response.”
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Over the past year, armed groups have launched more than 40 attacks on hospitals, clinics and health workers in Afghanistan, and killed around 45 staff – mainly polio vaccinators – in Nigeria and Pakistan, the report said.
In Syria, where medical facilities in Aleppo have been hit by government barrel bombs, almost 200 medical staff have been killed since January 2014, according to the report.
Doctors and nurses have been forced to withhold care under threat of violence, wounded people seeking treatment in Syria have been arrested and detained, and many people avoid going to hospital for fear of arrest, torture or death, the report said.
(Thomson Reuters Foundation)