Medical personnel across the world are at risk of attack in armed conflicts. Whether the U.S. bombing of a Doctors Without Borders hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, in October 2015, or the Syrian government’s years-long assault on doctors and medical facilities, such attacks violate protections under international human rights law and endanger medical neutrality.
When combatants destroy a hospital, they strip people of a safe space to go to when they are wounded or ill. When they kill a doctor, they also jeopardize the lives that doctor may have saved.
In this event, Physicians for Human Rights and the Open Society Foundations presented an expert panel that explored how violations of medical neutrality are increasingly being used as a weapon of war, and what this means for humanitarian organizations’ ability to offer aid amidst conflict.
Speakers
- Elise Baker is a Syria researcher for Physicians for Human Rights.
- Widney Brown is director of programs for Physicians for Human Rights.
- Deane Marchbein is president of Médecins Sans Frontières–USA.
- Jonathan Cohen (introduction) is director of the Open Society Public Health Program.