A 2011 report by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs noted that UN-backed diversion efforts have had some success in the past, including in Arab-Israeli conflicts.21 Since 2015, the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has also applied a deconfliction mechanism in Yemen,22 where a Saudi-led coalition is accused of bombing civilian targets, Including hospitals.23 Although civilians continue to be killed, UN officials have said the deconflexion system is indispensable for their relief operations. „The United Nations is providing coordinates for key relief facilities to the [Saudi-led] coalition, and we are letting them know when humanitarian convoys, vaccination teams and other relief missions will be on the move,“ Mark Lowcock, head of the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, said in October 2018. „This system has proven to be largely effective in protecting the rescue operation from accidental or accidental damage. Without them, we simply would not be able to provide help safely. 24 government soldiers did not penetrate deep into Idlib`s pockets, but the fighting nonetheless triggered a mass exodus. By the end of May, the United Nations had counted 160 civilians killed and 270,000 displaced.31 Information is still difficult for foreigners to verify, and the situation on the ground is grim. Marta Hurtado, spokeswoman for the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned that pro- and anti-Assad groups have failed to comply with international humanitarian law, including placing military assets in „immediate vicinity of civilians and civilian objects, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries and causing significant damage to civilian infrastructure such as hospitals and mosques. Schools and markets. 40 The system has had limited success in Syria. According to a report by Ben Parker of The New Humanitarian, 778 sites in Syria had been added to the United Nations no-strike lists by the end of 2018, compared to 64,000 in Yemen. Of the approximately 120 attacks on health facilities in Syria this year, a „handful“ reportedly struck defused places.27 „In Hama, families have sought temporary refuge, while others are heading into Idlib governorate, apparently heading to camps near the Turkish border, as well as to rural western and northern areas of Aleppo governorate.“, said Mari Mørtvedt, a spokesman for the Damascus-based ICRC. Population movements are continuous and difficult to track.
32 The population of north-eastern Syria continues to suffer from the worsening effects of 11 years of conflict, with displacement, insecurity, economic crisis and limited access to basic services creating a range of humanitarian needs throughout the region. For example, the Alouk water station has suffered repeated interruptions that have led to episodic water shortages for up to one million people in Hassakeh governorate. In April 2018, twelve NGOs operating a total of sixty clinics in insurgent-controlled northwestern Syria joined the system. The organizations made it clear that they did not trust the Syrian and Russian governments to comply with the Geneva Conventions, but nevertheless decided to join the system after having „extensive consultations with our teams in Syria and the doctors working in these hospitals, long consultations and the full support of our teams in Syria and the doctors working in these hospitals.“ according to the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), a US-based NGO that provides medical assistance in areas beyond Assad`s control and for Syrian refugees. „The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs has assured us that it will now monitor and report suspected attacks,“ a SAMS statement said. „While we know that such attacks are likely to continue, we hope that this measure will have a deterrent effect and bring more transparency to the reporting process.“ 28 In Syria, the economic crisis and COVID-19 have exacerbated the humanitarian crisis caused by 11 years of war, with more people in urgent need of assistance than ever before. Doctors have a special place in Syrian society — they are the best graduates, the crème de la crème of the harvest, the natural leaders — so it`s natural that they were an early target of the regime when the revolution began, Sahloul says. At least 60 doctors were killed and more than 200 arrested, he said. And Syria`s health system, one of the best in the Middle East, is on the verge of collapse. A guy named Harry Beller contacted me on Facebook.
He claimed that he was a Florida native, widower, had a 15-year-old daughter, had been working on a contract with the United Nations as an orthopaedic doctor in Syria since 2000 and planned to retire soon. For example, the United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) strongly condemned attacks on hospitals in the early days of the offensive.41 Since then, THE WHO has reported that nearly fifty clinics have had to close due to insecurity, many of them after a bombing. „Due to the conflict, there are no functioning hospitals in northern Hama,“ the WHO said, warning that the health sector in the region had already „almost collapsed“ on May 15 and that even vaccination centers were closed, posing a risk of an outbreak.42 Many hospitals in insurgent-controlled areas voluntarily shared their GPS coordinates with Russia. Assad`s ally under a UN-led system called „humanitarian deconfliction.“ It doesn`t seem to help. Some officials and activists are now questioning whether the „no-strike list“ is being used to locate and destroy hospitals – the opposite of what the United Nations had planned. „There were no accidental attacks on Syrian civilians in Idlib,“ Syrian Ambassador to the UN Bashar al-Jaafari said. „There are military operations carried out by the Syrian army and its allies against a terrorist entity listed by the Security Council to liberate the civilian population of Idlib.“ He insisted that civilians in the region „be used by al-Qaeda in Syria as human shields.“ Jaafari did not respond to questions about the conflict from UN nations, but said some hospitals in Syria had been stormed by terrorists; He then accused the U.S. Air Force of attacking hospitals during its campaign against the Islamic State.55 Other UN officials issued stronger statements, bluntly stating that low-conflict targets were being attacked. Attar was born in Chicago to Syrian parents.
He is a leading orthopedic surgeon and a member of the Syrian American Medical Society. In the past, the company only connected Syrian-American doctors, but it took action with the war, and today it provides doctors and millions of dollars in aid to those who are suffering. Many doctors have fled to Turkey and are caring for a refugee population that has overwhelmed the Turkish health system. At a rehabilitation center in southern Turkey, a patient silently carries his pain while a doctor bandages the stump of his recently amputated leg below the knee. Syrian doctors run the facility, which is funded by a Syrian businessman in the Gulf. „Never, in my dreams, would I have expected to sneak into the border three times and let the border guards yell at me,“ he says. However, the mere observation of weapons or soldiers in a hospital does not mean that it can be attacked. In some cases, weapons may actually be authorized on hospital grounds. For example, employees of a military hospital can reasonably be expected to carry small arms to defend themselves or patients, without it being an act that „harms the enemy.“ Similarly, hospitals and ambulances can surround themselves with escorts and armed guards when operating in dangerous areas.
Rifles and other small arms taken from wounded combatants may also be temporarily stored on hospital grounds. None of these activities would deprive a hospital of its protected status. „After all, there can never be a loss of protection when you provide medical care to a wounded enemy – it`s never in itself a hostile act,“ says Ivlev-Yorke.11 It`s a critical condition caused by his former medical school classmate, Assad, he says. But Sahloul is convinced that this is a turning point in the revolution, as the rebels seize more and more territory throughout the country. Now it`s time for doctors to come back. Physicians for Human Rights, an NGO, says it has confirmed reports of 566 separate attacks on a total of 348 medical facilities in Syria from March 2011 to May 2019. Nearly 900 medical workers are believed to have lost their lives in the attacks.