Syria’s Conflict at 10 Years: Ongoing violations of International Humanitarian Law

On June 17 2021, the Syria Public Health Network (SPHN) and the Center for Humanitarian Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH) hosted a webinar as a part of the SPHN series on rebuilding Syria’s fractured health system. Syria’s conflict which began after peaceful uprisings in March 2011 were violently suppressed has seen unprecedented violations of International Humanitarian Law with frequent and direct attacks on healthcare and the use of prohibited weapons, including chemical weapons. This has had a profound effect on Syria’s healthcare workforce and health system leaving both devastated even before the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, mechanisms introduced to mitigate such attacks on healthcare, such as deconfliction, have failed to prevent such attacks. In this webinar, we explored what the ongoing nature and normalization of such violations of International Humanitarian Law in Syria elsewhere mean for the future of healthcare in conflict.
Chair: Susannah Sirkin, Director of Policy, Physicians for Human Rights
Speakers:
Dr Amani Ballour, Pediatrician & Manager of The Cave Hospital
Houssam Nahhas, Physician & MENA Researcher, Physicians for Human Rights
Leonard Rubenstein, Human Rights Lawyer & Professor of Practice, Johns Hopkins