ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – World Health Organization (WHO) officials have documented 494 attacks on hospitals and other medical facilities across Syria since 2016, which killed 470 patients and health workers and injured 968.
Attacks on medical facilities are considered a war crime under international humanitarian law, yet there have been frequent reports of attacks on hospitals over the course of Syria’s devastating decade-long civil war.
“The data we can now reveal on attacks on health in Syria is a grim testament to a blatant disrespect for international humanitarian law and the lives of civilians and health workers,” Richard Brennan, WHO’s Regional Emergency Director in the Eastern Mediterranean, said in a statement Wednesday.
“What is troubling, is that we’ve come to a point where attacks on health – something the international community shouldn’t tolerate – are now taken for granted; something we have become accustomed to.”
According to WHO data, there were 494 confirmed attacks between 2016 and 2019, the vast majority of them in the country’s northwestern provinces of Idlib, Aleppo, and Hama – the last holdouts of the armed opposition to the Bashar al-Assad regime.
Attacks on health facilities in Syria’s northwest over this period accounted for 309 deaths – and the attacks are continuing.
“Only two weeks ago, two hospitals in Idlib governorate were carried out, injuring four health workers and temporarily suspending services,” said Brennan.
In the first months of 2020, the WHO has confirmed nine attacks on northwestern health facilities, which have killed 10 and injured 35.
The United Nations has previously submitted lists of no-strike zones in an effort to protect hospitals from airstrikes and artillery. These lists appear to have been readily ignored.
“A clear example of how conflict impacts an individual’s right to health is northwest Syria, where today only half of 550 health facilities remain open either due to insecurity, damage from previous attacks, threats of future attacks, or surrounding areas being completely deserted as people are forced from their homes,” Brennan added.
De-confliction zones, established by Russia and rebel-backer Turkey under the 2018 Sochi agreement, were designed to prevent further attacks. Reports indicate that ceasefires have been repeatedly violated by both sides.
The Russian-backed regime launched a new offensive against the armed opposition in Idlib and parts of Aleppo province in December, retaking part of the strategic M5 highway and dozens of towns and villages held by rebels since the uprising began in 2011.
Civilian homes and infrastructure have not been spared in the onslaught, sending up to a million people fleeing to the Turkish border. The United Nations has called the mass displacement among the worst of the entire conflict.
In February, the United Nation’s Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Mark Lowcock, warned a ceasefire must hold in order to prevent “the biggest humanitarian horror story of the 21st Century”.
In early March, the United Nations explicitly accused Russia of launching “indiscriminate” attacks that killed dozens of civilians in Syria, constituting war crimes.
The Kremlin has strongly rejected the allegations and accused the international community of ignoring the crimes of “terrorist groups”.
