The numbers are cold in the back. According to the latest UNICEF press release (published Thursday, May 19, 2016), every day, 4 schools or hospitals around the world are attacked by armed groups.
“Attacks on schools and hospitals during conflict are an alarming and shameful trend,” said Afshan Khan, director of emergency programs for the United Nations Children’s Fund. “Children are killed, injured or disabled for life in the very places where they should be protected and feel safe. TO”
“Intentional and direct strikes on these establishments as well as on medical staff and teachers can be war crimes”, she adds. “Governments and stakeholders urgently need to protect schools and hospitals by upholding the provisions of international humanitarian law and international human rights law. human rights. TO”
1,500 attacks in 2014
These statements obviously recall the operations carried out on April 27, against a hospital in Aleppo (Syria) where at least fifty people were killed with, among them, the one of the last pediatricians in the region. But the UNICEF report also found more than 1,500 cases of attacks on schools and hospitals in 2014, especially in Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, South Sudan, Palestine and Nigeria.
TO” In syria, the withdrawal of medical kits and surgical supplies from aid convoys, restrictions on medical evacuations and killings of medical personnel mean that access to health care in the areas concerned, of vital importance to the civilian population, is decreasing day by day, ”added UNICEF officials.
This report will be presented at the first-ever World Humanitarian Summit, to be held on 23-24 May 2016 in Istanbul (Turkey).
