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Attacks on health facilities and health workers: time for the Security Council to act
BY LEONARD RUBENSTEIN // May 16, 2017
May 3, 2017, marked the first anniversary of a UN Security Council resolution that condemned attacks on health facilities and personnel in conflict and the “prevailing impunity” for these atrocities. 1 But neither the Security Council nor governments have acted on the resolution. Now, a report by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition, Impunity Must End, 2 shows that in 2016, the number and intensity of attacks on health services in 23 countries continued to be staggeringly high. In ten countries, hospitals were bombed or shelled. In 20 countries, health workers were intimidated, assaulted, and arrested, and in 11 of them they were killed. In 15 countries, humanitarian access to health assistance was severely curtailed.