Friday,
July 29, 2016
Possible War Crime: Syrian Maternity Hospital
Bombed
'All such attacks must be
investigated and those responsible for serious violations of the laws of war
must be brought to justice'
This story may be updated.
A maternity hospital in Syria's northwestern, rebel-held
province of Idlib was bombed on Friday, the U.K.-based charity Save the
Children said. The number of casualties is unclear at this
point.
According to human rights organization
Amnesty International, it "appears to be part of a despicable pattern of
unlawful attacks deliberately targeting medical facilities."
Save the Children posted the news of the strike on the hospital,
which it supports, on Twitter, and included video footage of the aftermath:
BREAKING NEWS : Save the Children supported maternity
hospital in #Idlib bombed, casualties reported -
numbers unconfirmed #Syria
—
SavetheChildren News (@SaveUKNews) July 29, 2016
The aftermath of the horrific #Syria hospital
bombing. Our thoughts are with families & team members on the ground. pic.twitter.com/AOW4Kd01lT
— Save
the Children UK (@savechildrenuk) July 29, 2016
According to reporting by Reuters,
the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights confirmed the hit on the
medical facility, as well as "a civil defense building."
"The bomb hit the entrance of the hospital, which sees
1,300 women monthly and carries out over 300 deliveries a month," Save the
Children spokesperson Emma Pomfret said to CNN from London.
Another spokesperson for the charity, Caroline Anning, told the Independent there
were at least two casualties.
"Deliberate attacks on hospitals and medical facilities are
serious violations of the laws of war and can never be justified. Hospitals,
which have special protection under international humanitarian law, should be
safe places for mothers, new-born infants, and medical workers—even in the
midst of a brutal prolonged conflict," said Philip Luther, Middle East and
North Africa program director at Amnesty International.
Though it is not clear at this point who carried out the strike,
Amnesty said in its press statement that it occurred "in an area under the
control of armed groups where Syrian and Russian armed forces had been
launching airstrikes."
"All such attacks must be investigated and those
responsible for serious violations of the laws of war must be brought to
justice," Luther added.
As Amnesty indicated in its statement, the bombing of the
maternity hospital does not represent an isolated incident. As Physicians for
Human Rights has documented, there have been hundreds of attacks on healthcare facilities in
Syria since March 2011, the majority of which were (pdf) deliberate, targeted strikes.
The organization further notes:
When
medical workers are killed, the human toll is not just their lives, but also
the exponential number of people who will suffer without treatment and the many
lives that will be lost as a result. When these attacks on health care become
as prolonged and widespread as they have in Syria, the consequences reach far
beyond the individuals and facilities lost—the attacks reverberate across the
civilian community, inciting fear that seeking medical treatment or going to a
hospital will result in death, injury, kidnapping, torture, or imprisonment,
both for the patient and the medical provider.
The hospital bombing comes just hours after the Syrian
Observatory for Human Rights said the U.S.-led coalition killed 28
civilians in a strike in the northern area of Manbij.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-323-1607; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
No comments:
Post a Comment