Three of the world’s top health agencies denounced on Sunday the international community’s failure to protect health care workers, hospitals and patients in conflict zones.
The World Health Organization, the International Committee of the Red Cross and Doctors Without Borders, in a joint statement, issued an “urgent call for action.”
Their statement was issued 10 years after the UN Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2286 condemning attacks on health care facilities, medical staff and patients, they noted.
“The situation is even worse” a decade on, AFP quoted them as saying.
“As violence affecting medical facilities, transport and personnel continues unabated, the harm this resolution sought to prevent has not diminished,” said the statement. “It has continued and, in many contexts, intensified.”
The three agencies said they were joining “others in the international community in issuing an urgent call for action.”
They added: “When health care is no longer safe, it is often the clearest warning sign that the rules and norms intended to limit the harm of war are breaking down.”
“When hospitals come under attack, we face not only a humanitarian crisis, but a crisis of humanity. States and all parties to armed conflict must comply with the rules protecting health care,” the agencies noted.
“We urge world leaders to act and show the needed political leadership to end this violence,” they concluded in the joint statement.
