UN Security Council Slams Hospital Attacks In War Zones
MEP: The United Nations Security Council on Tuesday strongly condemned attacks on hospitals and health-care workers in Syria and Yemen as rebel’s rocket attack bombed a hospital in the Syrian city of Aleppo yesterday.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said militant rockets had killed 19 people in government-held territory, including an unspecified number at the al-Dabit hospital.
At least 80 others were wounded in the shelling of government-held areas of Aleppo on Tuesday, according to the source.
The Syrian army issued a statement, saying al-Qaeda-linked al-Nusra Front, Ahrar al-Sham, and Jaysh al-Islam terrorist groups carried out the shelling attacks.
The Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution to remind warring parties everywhere of the rules, demanding protection for those who provide health care and accountability for violators. The measure urged member states to conduct independent investigations and prosecute those found responsible for violations “in accordance with domestic and international law.”
Addressing the council meeting, UN chief Ban Ki-moon said, “Intentional and direct attacks on hospitals are war crimes. Denying people access to essential health care is a serious violation of international humanitarian law.”
The resolution said attacks on hospitals, medical staff and patients had increased at an alarming rate in the past few years and reminded countries of their obligations under the Geneva conventions to protect all civilians as well as medical facilities, including wounded combatants.
The International Committee of the Red Cross documented 2,400 cases of attacks in 11 conflict zones on medical personnel, facilities and patients in the past three years, according to its president, Peter Maurer, who addressed the world body.
“Attacks on health-care facilities and works have gone from side events of warfare to center stage,” Mr. Maurer said, adding that the adoption of the resolution was only a first step in the long process of implementation.
But the resolution also raised an awkward question: Can the world’s most powerful countries be expected to enforce the rules when they and their allies are accused of flouting them?
Russian warplanes were blamed for the bombing of Syrian health centers, for instance, and Syrian soldiers, backed by the Kremlin, continue to remove lifesaving medicines, even painkillers, from United Nations aid convoys heading into rebel-held areas.
At the same time, Britain and the United States back a Saudi-led coalition that is accused of attacking health facilities in Yemen. China and Russia support the government of Sudan, which is accused of at least two attacks on health facilities supported by Doctors Without Borders, the international medical charity, in Kordofan State.
From the charity’s international president, Dr. Joanne Liu, seated at the Security Council’s horseshoe-shaped table, came the sharpest rebuke to the Council’s five permanent, veto-wielding members.
