At least 167 healthcare workers were killed in conflict last year

Over 900 recorded attacks were carried out on healthcare facilities, personnel, and patients in 23 countries in conflict last year, a significant rise on the 701 instances reported in 2017.1

The figures are included the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition 2018 report, which brings together data from bodies such as the World Health Organization and the UN.

The report found that at least 167 health workers died and at least 710 were injured in 2018. Healthcare in the Palestinian occupied territories was the worst affected with a total of 308 attacks, closely followed by Syria (257 attacks). Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, and Libya also saw a large number of attacks.

In response to the findings, leaders from human rights groups are calling for governments and the UN to hold attackers accountable for their “heinous crimes.”

According to the report, 173 health facilities and 111 health transportation vehicles were damaged or destroyed last year.

In the Palestinian occupied territories alone, 564 health workers were injured, including 33 at one mass demonstration last April, where four paramedics were struck by direct fire and 29 health workers suffered from tear gas inhalation.

In Syria 75 health workers were injured, 13 were kidnapped, and 88 were killed. The situation in the country “remains one of the worst, globally,” according to the report, with 13.2 million people in Syria in need of health assistance, and 83% of Syrians living below the poverty line.

Healthcare in Syria also experienced air strikes, as did Yemen. Other attacks recorded in the report include a suicide bomber driving and detonating an ambulance filled with explosives in Afghanistan, killing at least 95 people.

In Nigeria, heavily armed Boko Haram insurgents attacked an internally displaced persons camp, killing two Nigerian workers from the International Organisation for Migration and a UNICEF doctor, and kidnapping two midwives and a nurse. The midwives were later executed.

Attacks on vaccination workers were also reported in six countries—Afghanistan, the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Somalia, and Sudan—with six workers killed and six injured.

In November, seven UN peacekeepers and 12 members of the Democratic Republic of Congo military were also killed after the Allied Democratic Forces group attacked near the Ebola Emergency Operations Center and hotels where many Ebola responders were staying. This resulted in Ebola treatment centres closing for two days.

Leonard Rubenstein, coalition chair and senior scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, said: “The UN and governments claim to be committed to stopping attacks and ensuring accountability. But we are seeing again widespread impunity by state militaries and armed groups, the targeting of health workers, and the health of millions of people at risk.”

Susannah Sirkin, director of policy at Physicians for Human Rights, said: “Attacks on healthcare workers and facilities are egregious violations of international humanitarian law and they are war crimes, sometimes rising to the level of crimes against humanity.

“In the three years since the UN passed Resolution 2286 to protect health in conflict, attacks on health facilities and health personnel have continued with utter impunity. It’s time for the international community to demand accountability for these heinous crimes.”