Health Care In Danger

Global appreciation about the neutral and impartial role that humanitarian aid organizations take in situations of armed conflict diminished in the aftermath of the September 11 attacks.

[2] The International Committee of the Red Cross launched the Health Care In Danger campaign in 2011 with the publication of a report detailing 655[3] attacks on healthcare facilities in sixteen countries, noting them as breaches of the Geneva Conventions.

[2] It cites examples including how one attack in Somalia prevented 150,000 medical consultations per year, and calculated that the consequences of violence against healthcare workers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo results in excess mortality of 40,000 people per month.

[3] Other examples include the killing of 628 healthcare workers in Iraq and the fleeing of 18,000 doctors in the aftermath of the US-led invasion in 2003.

[2] The Health Care In Danger campaign leadership reported to The Lancet in 2020 that there were 611 attacks on healthcare workers and facilities in between 1 February 2020 and 31 July 2020 in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.