The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition has documented more than 700 separate attacks on hospitals, health workers, patients and ambulances in 23 countries in conflict across the globe.
Syria continues to experience the highest number of attacks on health, with 252 documented acts of violence against health facilities, transport, and personnel in 2017, amid sustained airstrikes and shelling on hospitals there, it said in its fifth annual report released on Monday.
"The world knows about atrocities against health care in Syria – and the report reveals more than 25 acts of violence against health facilities, transport and personnel there, the most in the world – but Syria is hardly alone: governments and armed groups inflict violence against health care with impunity in conflicts across the globe," said Leonard Rubenstein, chair of the Coalition.
Susannah Sirkin, director of international policy and partnerships at Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a member of the Coalition, explains that attacks on medical facilities “terrorize communities."
"They deprive already-suffering civilians of the life-saving treatment that they deserve.”
The Coalition’s report was released on the eve of the United Nations Security Council's review of actions since it adopted Resolution 2286 two years ago.
