phr.org Syria’s Medical Community Under Assault: July 2014 1

Syria’s Medical Community Under Assault

Physicians for Human Rights July 2014

For the most recent version, seephysiciansforhumanrights.org/ syria-fact-sheet

Since the war began in Syria in 2011, hospitals, field clinics, ambulances, and vehicles transporting medicine and medi-cal supplies have been deliberately targeted for destruction. While government forces have been largely responsible, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria and various anti-government armed groups have also carried out attacks. Medical person-nel have also been arrested, tortured, executed, and disap-peared. These crimes against the principle of medical neutral-ity – which ensures safe access to medical facilities, protects health care workers and their patients, and allows medical workers to provide unbiased care – have compounded the suffering of civilians and hastened the devastation of an already fragile health care system.

Syrian doctors treat a wounded man in a field hospi-tal in the besieged rebel-held city of Qusayr.

Photo: Antonio Pampliega/AFP/Getty Images

Introduction

Table of Contents1 Introduction2 Destruction of Medical Facilities3 Loss of Medical Personnel4 Resulting Health Consequences5 References

“The targeting of the medical community in Syria has reached epic proportions. The insidious attacks on medical professionals, facilities, and transport have devastated the country’s public health infrastructure, exacerbating an already overwhelming crisis.”- Donna McKay, PHR executive director

phr.org Syria’s Medical Community Under Assault: July 2014 2

Nearly half of the public hospitals in Syria have been damaged, destroyed, or rendered dysfunctional.

Destruction of PHR has documented 175 attacks on 143 separate medical facilities between March 2011 and the end of June 2014.1

As of June 2014, nearly half of the public hospitals in Syria had been damaged, destroyed, or rendered dysfunctional.2

Aleppo Governorate:• In July 2012, Aleppo’s blood bank was bombed.3 Since then, the 2.5 million

people living in the city of Aleppo have been without blood supply or blood bags. 4

• The only hospitals still functioning in Aleppo city are four primary health care centers and five trauma clinics.5 Of the city’s 17 pre-war ambulances, only seven remain functioning.6

Damascus Governorate:• As of April 2014, only 2 of 18 medical facilities in Qaboon were functioning, and

were only provide basic services, such as first aid.7

• In Jobar, there are no functioning medical facilities to serve the 1,900 people in need of health assistance.8

• In besieged Yarmouk camp, where there were formerly between 100 and 120 pharmacies, the Palestine Hospital now hosts the only pharmacy still in opera-tion.9 The Palestine Hospital has been attacked by shelling and rockets on at least two separate occasions.

Remains of a rebel field hospital in Qusayr in Syria’s central Homs province. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Medical Services

In Rif Dimashq, 24 out of 44 private hospitals, 3 out of 6 public hospitals, and 54 out of 176 health centers are out of service.10

Raqqa Governorate:• Raqqa National Hospital was the only hospital with

dialysis services in the governorate, serving 200 patients.11 In March 2014, the hospital’s kidney de-partment was aerially bombarded by government forces, and the dialysis center was destroyed.12

• Only two of the four public hospitals in Raqqa are still operating. As of July 2014, 80 people had reportedly died as a result of lack of supplies and equipment.13

Since the beginning of the crisis, 9 out of 23 exist-ing UNRWA health facilities have been closed due to destruction or insecurity.14

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526 medical personnel have reportedly been killed since the beginning of the conflict.

Loss of Medical Personnel

A doctor carries a wounded boy at a hospital in Syria’s north-ern city of Aleppo, who was injured when a shell, released by regime forces, hit his house. Photo: ARIS MESSINIS/AFP/GettyImages

As of June 2014, 44 Red Crescent workers (37 Syrian Arab Red Crescent staff members and volunteers and seven Palestine Red Crescent Society staff members and volunteers)22 had died while carrying out humanitarian work in Syria, all clearly displaying the red crescent emblem.23

Targeting of HumanitarianAid Workers

As of June 30, 2014, 526 medical personnel had reportedly been killed since the beginning of the conflict, including 173 doctors, 104 Nurses, 97 medics, and 50 pharmacists, among others.15

In May 2014 alone, PHR documented the death of 30 medical personnel, repre-senting the highest number of medical personnel killed in one month.16

Little to no mental health services are available, as most mental health profes-sionals have left the country.17

As of December 2013, an estimated 15,000 doctors had fled the country.18

• As of May 2014, there were only 40 doctors serving the population of 2.5 million in Aleppo, which had 2,000 doctors before the war began. There are only 10 to 15 surgeons available to perform the necessary 1,500 surgeries in the city each week.19 As of March 2014, the rebel-controlled parts of the city had an estimated 10 to 12 general surgeons, three to five orthopedic surgeons, and fewer than 10 internal medicine specialists.20

• While Eastern Ghota had 1,000 doctors before the conflict broke out, an estimated 30 remained as of December 2013.21

On January 2, 2014, five MSF staff members were taken from their house in northern Syria. Three of the staff mem-bers were released on April 4, and the remaining two were released on May 14. The abduction forced MSF to perma-nently close one of its hospitals and two health centers in the Jabal Akkrad region.24

As of June 2014, 28 UN national staff members remained in detention or were missing.25

In besieged Yarmouk camp, at least 12 medical workers have been arrested, six of whom remain unaccounted for; one allegedly died from torture and ill-treatment. Many other medical workers have left the camp in fear of arrest.26

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9,500 Syrians are displaced each day.

Resulting Health Syria now has one of the largest and fastest evolving internal displacement crises worldwide, with 6.5 million internally displaced people.27

According to the Internal Displacement Monitoring Center, 9,500 Syrians are dis-placed per day.28

As of June 2014, the number of people in need of humanitarian assistance had reached 10.8 million, with up to 4.7 million of these individual residing in areas that are difficult or impossible for humanitarian actors to reach.29

Approximately 241,000 people remain in besieged areas. Between May 20 and June 17, 2014, UN assistance only reach two besieged areas, Yarmouk and Douma. Food was delivered to 1 percent of the besieged populations (2,467 people), while non-food items reached 7 percent (17,204 people).30

In Moadamiya, a besieged district in Western Ghouta, food scarcity had resulted in an average weight loss of 20 kilograms per person as of December 2013.31 As of April 2014, residents were allowed to bring in very small amounts of food, but medicine and shelter materials are prohibited, and UN and SARC personnel are still unable to enter the area and deliver humanitarian assistance.32

As of June 9, only 12 percent of the recipients in the World Food Program’s food dispatch plan were reached, compared to the 26 percent reached at the same time in April.33

Syria is facing its first polio outbreak since 1999, with 140 reported cases of acute flacid paralysis (AFP).34 The World Health Organization (WHO) had confirmed 39 polio cases as of July 2014.35 However, Dr. Raafat al-Assaad of the Mohassan Field Hospital reported that there are over 70 cases of polio and 25 cases of tuberculosis in Deir ez Zor alone.36

An injured Syrian woman rides in the back of a van as it arrives at hospital following an air strike by regime forces in Aleppo.

Photo: TAUSEEF MUSTAFA/AFP/GettyImages

Outbreak of Disease

Consequences

Iraq has also confirmed its first polio case since 2000 in a six-month-old boy; he was infected with the same strand of the polio virus found in Syria.37

Before the war there were fewer than 3,000 cases of leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease caused by unsanitary conditions and exacerbated by malnutrition that affects several internal organs; there are now over 100,000 cases.38

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Syria is facing its first polio outbreak since 1999.

1. Compiled from field source interviews, open source videos, articles, reports, and social media.2. Compiled from field source interviews, open source videos, articles, reports, and social media.3. http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2013/nov/03/syria-assault-doctors/4. http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/Aleppo%20Assessment%20Report.pdf5. http://www.acaps.org/reports/downloader/part_i_syria_apr_2014/79/syria6. Field source, Skype correspondence with Physicians for Human Rights, March 24, 2014.7. http://www.acaps.org/reports/downloader/part_i_syria_apr_2014/79/syria8. http://www.acaps.org/reports/downloader/part_i_syria_apr_2014/79/syria9. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE24/008/2014/en/c18cfe4d-1254-42f2-90df-e0fce7c762fc/mde240082014en.pdf10. http://www.acaps.org/reports/downloader/part_i_syria_apr_2014/79/syria11. http://sn4hr.org/public_html/wp-content/pdf/english/Kidneys%20patients%20die%20in%20Raqqah%20governorate.pdf12. http://syrianewsdesk.com/en/2014/03/12/news-regime-air-raid-targets-al-raqqas-national-hospital13. http://www.acaps.org/reports/downloader/part_i_syria_july_2014/89/syria14. http://www.acaps.org/reports/downloader/palestinians_from_syria_march_2014/77/syria15. Compiled from field source interviews, open source videos, articles, reports, and social media.16. Compiled from field source interviews, open source videos, articles, reports, and social media.17. http://www.emro.who.int/emergency/eha-news/syria-sitrep.html18. http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/SINA_EN_Final.pdf19. http://www.acaps.org/reports/downloader/part_i_syria_july_2014/89/syria 20. Field source, Skype correspondence with Physicians for Human Rights, March 24, 2014.21. Field source, interview by Physicians for Human Rights, Amman, Jordan, December 5, 2013.22. http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2014/42723. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-05/aid-workers-killed-in-syria-icrc-says-44-killed/550272024. http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/five-msf-staff-held-syria-released 25. http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2014/427 26. http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE24/008/2014/en/c18cfe4d-1254-42f2-90df-e0fce7c762fc/mde240082014en.pdf27. http://www.internal-displacement.org/assets/publications/2014/201405-global-overview-2014-en.pdf28. http://www.internal-displacement.org/assets/publications/2014/201405-global-overview-2014-en.pdf 29. http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2014/42730. http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2014/42731. http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Countries/SY/LivingUnderSiege.pdf

Limited Supplies and

*The ongoing conflict inside Syria has made the verification of statistics around the crisis particularly challenging. However, Physicians for Human Rights has cross-referenced information and sources whenever possible in order to provide the most ac-curate and up-to-date numbers and statistics.

Between May 20 and June 17, 2014, medicine and medical equipment for ap-proximately 57,000 people in hard to reach areas was removed from WHO convoys owing to lack of approval, removal, or diversion of supplies. On May 24, medical supplies in route to Douma – including surgical items for 27,346 beneficiaries and critical medicines for 27,435 individuals – did not reach the intended destination.39

• Medicines (mainly antibiotics) were removed from an inter-agency convoy to Homs, which was traveling to the hard to reach area of Rastan. As a result, 2,116 beneficiaries were denied urgently needed medicines. Many of the same medi-cines were allowed into government-controlled areas that same day.40

• Approximately 177,000 civilians in the besieged areas of rural Damascus continue to suffer from malnutrition and medical shortages.41

There is a dire need for anesthetics, blood, blood bags, antibiotics, infant vaccines, hospital beds, electricity, fuel, radios, and nurses.42

As of January, almost half of the population of Dara’a governorate was in need of health care. Twelve percent of people are in need of lifesaving health assistance and another 36 percent are in need of moderate health assistance.43

References*

Medications

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32. http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/N1430558.pdf33. http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2014/42734. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2014/mar/06/truth-about-polio-syria/?pagination=false35. http://www.acaps.org/reports/downloader/part_i_syria_july_2014/89/syria36. http://www.syriadeeply.org/articles/2014/05/5499/conversations-doctors-deir-ezzor-polio-infectious-diseases-return/37. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/08/world/middleeast/polio-spreads-from-syria-to-iraq-causing-worries.html38. http://www.todayszaman.com/news-310925-leishmaniasis-outbreak-rings-alarm-bells-at-turkish-syrian-border.html39. http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2014/42740. http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol=S/2014/42741. http://www.acaps.org/reports/downloader/overview_july_2014/88/syria42. Field source, interview by Physicians for Human Rights, Amman, Jordan, December 5, 2013.43. http://www.acaps.org/reports/downloader/dar_a_governorate_multi_sector_needs_assessment/71/syria

References (cont.)

Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) uses medicine and science to document and call attention to mass atrocities and severe human rights violations. PHR was founded in 1986 on the idea that health professionals, with their specialized skills, ethical duties, and credible voices, are uniquely posi-tioned to stop human rights violations. PHR’s investigations and expertise are used to advocate for persecuted health workers, the prevention of torture, the investigation of mass atrocities, and holding those who violate human rights accountable.

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