(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
Imagine the following scenario: Your mother has given you a handful of hard-earned money and sends you to the square to buy goods for today's dinner. While judging which tomatoes look best, you hear the sound of planes – first in the distance, but then ever closer. Then the world goes black, everything becomes quiet, you can not move your legs. When you open your eyes, there is chaos around you, bodies in twisted positions, injured and killed on all sides. An ambulance has arrived and you are rushed to a stretcher and driven to the nearest hospital. Just as the ambulance drives into the hospital and the patients are to be carried in for life-saving treatment, you hear the sound again – the planes return. That's the last thing you hear before everything goes black again. Forever.
"Double-tap". The scenario above is a so-called "double-loss" attack. First, a target is attacked, often an area where many are gathered, such as a market or school. So, when the survivors are taken to treatment, the hospital is attacked. As if to be absolutely sure that no one can survive. This is done systematically in Syria today. Since 2015, 108 clinics and hospitals MSF has been bombed or attacked in 178 various attacks. According to the UN, 22 clinics have been hit so far this year, seven only in the last seven days.
For the Norwegian authorities, the relationship with their ally the United States weighed most heavily.
The result is quite obvious. In addition to the killings of civilians that happen there and then, the rest of the locals lose the opportunity for health care. And at a time when they need it most. My colleague Morten Rostrup told me when he came home from a mission in the country: “I was asked not to say that I was a doctor if we were stopped. Say you're a journalist too. " In Syria, the doctor treating your enemy is a target.
Not only are attacks on health personnel and bombing of hospitals morally and ethically reprehensible, they are also contrary to the rules of war. The Geneva Conventions, which define these regulations, are signed by 196 countries, including the great powers, and provide clear guidance on what is law and not law in war. Hospitals are protected areas.
One would therefore assume that violations of the Geneva Conventions would have consequences. But when we asked for support for an independent investigation following the attack on our hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan in 2015, where 42 people were killed, very few countries in the world would stand by our side. For the Norwegian authorities, the relationship with their ally the United States weighed most heavily, as it does for many small countries. For the superpowers, there may be fears of being investigated that hinder such support.
Protection for all of us. That states act in their own interest is no surprise and so far legitimate. But wouldn't one think that a small country like Norway is best served by protecting a world order based on mutually binding laws and recognized regulations? Not only as a sovereign state, but also for the sake of its own citizens? The Geneva Conventions were set in the cooling waters of World War II. They were not written specifically for Afghan and Syrian patients, doctors and nurses – they all give us protection, whether you live at Tveita or Tashkent. It is no more than 75 years since several of our Norwegian hospitals were bombed and laid in ruins, including my former workplace Hammerfest hospital. Is that not enough reason to insist emphatically that these conventions must continue to apply, and that serious violations of them must be investigated by an independent institution? Still, it is not done. Despite repeated UN Security Council resolutions, and condemnation from activists, organizations and (some) states, the reality on the ground does not change. The protection exists only on the paper.
When the survivors are taken to treatment, the hospital is attacked.
Why are our authorities not confronted with this stupidity? Why is the media not reporting what is happening? When yet another hospital supports MSF, it was attacked on 29. January this year, we sent out another press release to tell you about the incident. The modest hope was to get attention, a reaction, or at least a mention. Again, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry tweeted its condemnation. But from an overall press corps it was quiet.
Attacks on hospitals and health professionals in Syria have now become so commonplace that it takes much before it catches the media's interest. And I can understand that. A news should preferably be about something new, and that schools, markets and hospitals are being bombed and together in Syria is not new. I also know that there are many excellent journalists out there who would like to take this matter, but the editors' priorities will be different. Yet another case about the war in Syria may not fit so well into the "mix" of today's harsh media reality. And neither can I read about war and misery.
Collective failure. But when we no longer remember what is going on, then we also do not see the dark seriousness behind it – that the world community collectively fails to protect some of the most important things we have built up as a society. The fact that the Geneva Conventions are regularly and increasingly violated cannot go unnoticed. Victims of war and conflict need and are entitled to protection – both today and in the future. We as civil society must demand political courage and action to ensure this. In order to do just that, we need to know what's going on.
MSF will continue to focus on the bestial and illegal brutality we are witnessing in our work, affecting above all a civilian population that is increasingly unprotected. We need more people who can lift their voices – not just for their sake, but on behalf of our common future.
