STOP BOMBING HOSPITALS
Our story began inside Al-Quds, the last remaining hospital inside besieged East Aleppo, where I served as the director and, as such, was responsible for the entire population in the area during relentless attacks by the Syrian and Russian armies.
Al-Quds hospital itself was targeted multiple times, until the night of the 27th of April 2016: at 9:42 pm, the hospital was hit by Russian airstrikes, killing 52 people.
DR HAMZA AL-KATEAB
Context
The acts of violence carried out by the Syrian regime followed patterns - intentional and systematic - which clearly aimed at breaking the people’s resistance: residential areas, along with places and services key to human survival such as bakeries and schools, were not spared but they were consistently targeted, leaving whole cities in ruin. The overwhelming rising of needs concerning emergency treatments, along with chronic patients, the difficulty in supplying equipment, medications, and human resources, would have been enough to crush the healthcare system in areas outside of the State’s control. However, the strategy of annihilation went further as healthcare personnel and facilities have been direct targets themselves.
Physicians for Human Rights have documented
601 attacks on medical facilities between March 2011 and December 2021
Under International Humanitarian Law, any attack that deliberately targets healthcare facilities, or that fails to take all the necessary precautions to prevent their destruction, constitutes a war crime. And yet, the widespread assault on healthcare has been one of the distinctive features of the violence perpetrated by the Syrian regime and its allies since the earliest days of the Syrian uprising: medical workers have been detained, tortured and killed; medical facilities throughout the country deliberately targeted and destroyed.
We first launched our call to action, “Stop Bombing Hospitals” the moment For Sama was first shared with the world: from the Cannes Film Festival red carpet. Since then we have exposed the issue in unprecedented settings, in different corners of the world, gathering engagement from the medical community and beyond. Scroll through some of those moments below:
Timeline of AFS Activities
Our vision
In 2023, we further scaled up our activities beyond public campaigning, and engaged colleagues, allies and stakeholders in London, Washington D.C. and Berlin, where we gathered a diverse cohort of Syrian doctors, Syrian and International NGOs, and government representatives to discuss new strategies and measures to enhance the support given to medical workers in conflict and strengthen their resilience in the face of attacks. This work is ongoing and through it we aim to:
Raise awareness about attacks on healthcare through campaigning and education efforts, increasing the profile of the issue among the public and key international stakeholders
Prioritise the protection of healthcare workers and facilities in conflict by providing recommendations aimed at improving humanitarian programs in their support
Demand global adherence to the implementation of Humanitarian Law on healthcare and ensure accountability for those who violate it
