February 16, 2016 — Yesterday’s appalling attacks on seven health facilities in northern and southern Syria is a low point in a war marked by an utter contempt for civilian life and flagrant disregard for international humanitarian law.
Among the facilities attacked were two IRC-supported medical facilities in Idlib Governorate and one IRC-supported clinic in Dera’a. In addition, an IRC centre which helps women in the border town of Azaz suffered blast damage from an airstrike.
The killing of 26 patients and medical workers, whether deliberately or indiscriminately, is an outrage. No side should need to be reminded that attacking hospitals amounts to a war crime, as well as a clear violation of successive UN Security Council resolutions on the humanitarian crisis in Syria. As a consequence of yesterday’s strikes, an estimated 90,000 people will now be without medical care.
Despite the ever-increasing risks, IRC aid workers and its partners continue to provide vital medicine and medical supplies to health facilities across Syria, which next month will enter its sixth year of war. We call on all parties to the conflict to immediately halt all attacks on civilians, civilian infrastructure and aid workers, and to ensure that all those in need of humanitarian assistance in Syria can access it fully, freely and safely at all times.