Is all well on World Humanitarian Day?

The World Humanitarian Day was observed on 19th August, 2012. One of the most
crucial yet overlooked humanitarian issues of today: violence against health care.
Attacking health-care structures and personnel, and ambulances as well as
deliberately obstructing the efforts of the wounded to find help are common
features of conflicts throughout the world.
In Sri Lanka and Somalia, hospitals have been bombed. In Libya and Lebanon,
ambulances have been attacked ; in Bahrain, medical personnel who gave Medicare
to protesters are on trial; and in Afghanistan, the wounded languish for hours in
vehicles held up in checkpoint queues. From Colombia to Gaza, and from the
Democratic Republic of the Congo to Nepal, there is a lack of respect for the
neutrality of health-care facilities and personnel, and medical vehicles, among both
those attacking them and those who misuse them for military gain.
The ICRC( Intl community of the red cross) has been documenting violence against
health-care facilities and personnel, and against patients, since 2008 in 16
countries where it is working. The number of incidents that have been recorded is
striking. But statistics represent only the tip of the iceberg: they do not capture the
compounded cost of violence health-care staff leaving their posts, hospitals
running out of supplies and vaccination campaigns coming to a halt. These knockon effects dramatically limit access to health care for entire communities, many of
whose members may be suffering from chronic or war-related health problems.
Deliberate attacks on health-care facilities and personnel and on patients and
medical vehicles virtually always violate international law. The Geneva Conventions
and their Additional Protocols assert the right of the wounded and the sick
combatants and civilians alike to be spared further suffering during armed conflict
and to receive assistance. To ensure this in practice, health-care facilities and
personnel, and medical vehicles, are given protected status as long as they
maintain their neutrality and treat all patients irrespective of their political,
religious or ethnic affiliation equally. Medical installations, vehicles and personnel
are clearly identified by protective symbols such as the red cross, red crescent and
red crystal. Furthermore, all parties to a conflict are obliged by law to search for

and collect the wounded after battle, and to facilitate their access to health-care
facilities. These laws, binding on all, are not always respected.
The ICRC and its partners in the International Red Cross and Red Crescent
Movement strive to find ways of reaching and assisting those wounded during
armed conflict and internal strife, and to protect health-care facilities. Some
initiatives are purely legal, such as spreading knowledge of international
humanitarian law among State and non-State actors and raising the subject of
violations with them when these occur. Some take more material form, such as
protecting hospitals with sandbags and bomb-blast film for the windows and
marking their roofs and sides with a Red Cross or Red Crescent, or teaching safer
access techniques to ambulance crews. And some are innovative measures to meet
local needs, like the taxi referral service in southern Afghanistan, which transports
the wounded from the front lines to hospital. But more has to be done to halt
violence against health care before it occurs. Primary responsibility for protecting
health care lies with combatants and States, who have an obligation to respect the
law, not with humanitarian organizations, who invariably deal with the
consequences of violations.
The ICRC is launching a major campaign to raise awareness of this pressing issue,
and mobilizing a community of concern. This global initiative will last four years
and aims at making a crucial difference for people affected on the groun