Your Highness,
Excellencies, dear colleagues and friends,
Assalamu’alaikum warahmatullahi wabarakatuh.
I thank the World Innovation Summit for Health and the Qatar Foundation for bringing us together to address the urgent issue of protecting health in armed conflict.
In northern Gaza last week, the Kamal Adwan hospital was subjected to intense fighting, a siege and a raid, reducing it from a hospital helping hundreds of patients with dozens of health workers, to a shell of itself.
Two weeks ago, a health facility in Pakistan where polio workers were preparing for a vaccination campaign was attacked, and a policeman protecting them was killed.
And just yesterday, two patients were executed during an attack on an MSF ambulance in Haiti.
That’s just this month.
Attacks on health care are becoming the “new normal” of conflict.
The report we are launching today, developed by WHO, WISH and the Qatar Foundation, shows that over the past three years we have seen an increase in the frequency, scale and impact of attacks on health care.
In addition to Afghanistan, Gaza and Haiti, WHO has this year verified 1100 attacks in Lebanon, Myanmar, Sudan, Ukraine, and elsewhere.
Since we started monitoring attacks on health care in 2018, WHO has verified more than 7400 attacks in 21 countries or territories, with more than 2400 deaths and 5000 injuries of health workers and patients.
These attacks kill and maim;
They deprive vulnerable people of the health services they need, when they need them most;
They destroy hospitals, clinics, ambulances;
And they undermine something less tangible, but more fundamental: hope.
And sometimes, that’s the point: to demoralize, degrade and dehumanize.
Who pays the price for these attacks? Older people; children; pregnant women; people living with disabilities, or those who need regular treatment for cancer, kidney failure or heart disease.
Let’s be clear: attacks on health care are a violation of the right to health, and a violation of international law, that can amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity.
Even when health facilities are militarised – which is itself an attack on health care – they are never without protection in humanitarian law.
And yet, almost no one has ever been held to account for these violations.
What’s the point of international law if it is neither respected nor enforced?
And where are the voices of world leaders denouncing these attacks?
Silence is tacit approval. If there is no accountability, attacks on health care will only increase.
The report we are launching today outlines nine recommendations globally, nationally and locally for bringing to account those who perpetrate these unspeakable attacks.
These are recommendations for all of us to act on: governments, UN agencies, international organizations, civil society, NGOs and more.
I won’t go through them; I urge you to read the report for yourselves.
But don’t just read it; act on it, today. Everyone in this room can do something to implement one or more of these recommendations, starting now.
Because if we don’t, who will?
Ultimately, the best way to stop attacks on health care is to stop the conflicts in which they happen.
When the conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, Sudan and Ukraine stop, so will the attacks on health care.
The best medicine is peace.
Shukran jazeelan. I thank you.
