\n<\/p>\n
T<\/span>wice every day, Liubov Martynenko leaves the underground maternity ward where she works in Kherson and travels by ambulance to collect meals from another hospital in the Ukrainian city\u2019s \u201cred zone\u201d, close to the Dnipro River and the Russian forces on the other side.<\/p>\n On 4 June , just before midday, the vehicle entered the grounds of Luchansky city clinical hospital as usual, but Martynenko, who also works as a midwife, heard a strange sound in the air. \u201cIt\u2019s flying!\u201d the driver screamed, as she realised there was a drone nearby.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was so close, just a couple of metres away, a flying box with a black eye,\u201d she told the Guardian this week.<\/p>\n The driver reversed sharply and it shot towards them, crashing into the side of the ambulance and exploding. Confused by the impact of the blast, Martynenko ran into a nearby clinic shouting that the driver had been killed. Both survived, however, receiving treatment for minor shrapnel wounds and concussion.<\/p>\n <\/span>Have attacks on hospitals become a weapon of war? – video<\/span><\/p>\n The vehicle, a donation from Italy, was clearly marked \u201cambulanza<\/em>\u201d and with a red cross on the roof \u2013 the internationally recognised legal symbol of protection and neutrality. Martynenko was wearing a red flak jacket, often worn by frontline medical workers to identify them.<\/p>\n \u201cIf it weren\u2019t for the driver\u2019s quick reactions, the drone would have hit the front of the vehicle and we probably would have died,\u201d she says. \u201cThe Russian operators attacked precisely on the hospital grounds \u2013 and it\u2019s not the first time it has been hit, either.\u201d<\/p>\n The incident is part of a growing pattern of attacks on medical workers and health infrastructure in conflict zones. From Sudan to Myanmar, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Afghanistan, such incidents have more than doubled globally since 2021.<\/p>\n Fuelled by the start of Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 and Israel\u2019s war in Gaza in 2023, figures peaked in 2024 but have remained at a historic high, with more than 2,500 documented incidents last year across 33 countries, according to the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition.<\/p>\n Bar chart showing countries with most attacks on healthcare personnel, with Palestine, Lebanon and Ukraine far ahead of Sudan in fourth place<\/p>\n Since Israel began a new offensive in Lebanon in March, there have been 247 incidents affecting healthcare and 148 health workers killed in the country, despite repeated ceasefires, according to Safeguarding Health In Conflict. Three hospitals were hit in southern Lebanon in just one week last month, with medical workers making up most of the 150 wounded.<\/p>\n Under international law, hospitals, healthcare workers and wounded people are afforded special protection. It was a founding principle of the first Geneva convention in 1864 and was reaffirmed 10 years ago when the UN security council adopted a resolution condemning such attacks.<\/p>\n In practice, however, those protections are steadily being eroded. Healthcare attacks have become so common that state actors are now regarded as routinely using them as a weapon of war by some experts.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you can\u2019t even protect hospitals, the first line of humanitarian protections, then it will lead to the breakdown of all international law,\u201d says Rohini Haar, an emergency doctor who lectures on human rights at the University of California, Berkeley. \u201cI believe we are seeing that.\u201d<\/p>\n Last year, the Guardian visited three frontline maternity hospitals in Kharkiv, Sloviansk and Kherson \u2013 the ward where Martynenko works \u2013 where women were forced to give birth in basements as drones circled overhead and explosions boomed nearby.<\/p>\n For the last few years, the vast majority of attacks have been carried out by state actors, which increasingly invoke \u201cdual-use\u201d claims to justify the assaults. Two of the worst offenders, Russia and Israel, argue that hospitals are used for military purposes, yet disclose little evidence publicly to back their claims.<\/p>\n Lawyers say the \u201cdual-use\u201d loophole does not legitimise these attacks, however, because international law requires that a target be verified as a military objective, that any harm is proportionate, and that advance evacuation warnings are given.<\/p>\n skip past newsletter promotionFree newsletter | Every fortnight<\/p>\n Sign up to Global Dispatch<\/span><\/p>\n Get a different world view with a roundup of the best news, features, opinion and photography, curated by our global development team<\/p>\n after newsletter promotion<\/p>\n However, there has never been a standalone conviction for a healthcare attack in international courts. They have only appeared as part of broader war crimes charges, such as those brought against the Bosnian Serb commanders Stanislav Gali\u0107 and Dragomir Milo\u0161evi\u0107 over the siege of Sarajevo.<\/p>\n It fits a wider pattern of a lack of enforcement for war crimes, allowing states and armed groups to act with near impunity.<\/p>\n The nature of warfare has changed too. Drones and long-range airstrikes are pounding cities and changing the idea of a defined battlefield, with military targets redefined as anything that might help to sustain the capability of a force.<\/p>\n Map showing countries with most attacks on healthcare facilities, with Palestine and Ukraine far outnumbering other countries<\/p>\n The cost of these attacks is devastating for civilian populations. A cascade of preventable deaths often follow because of the lack of emergency care and disruptions to routine care, and because people stop visiting hospitals out of fear. It leads to unassisted childbirths, surges in preventable sickness and outbreaks of disease as vaccinations are halted.<\/p>\n The fallout can last for decades, medical experts warn, especially when trained staff are killed.<\/p>\n Liz Harding, a humanitarian representative at M\u00e9decins Sans Fronti\u00e8res, says: \u201cHumanitarians and hospitals now almost have to justify why we shouldn\u2019t be targeted rather than those launching the attacks having to explain themselves.\u201d<\/p>\n After two weeks off, Martynenko is back at work, collecting meals from Luchansky for the patients on the maternity ward twice a day, but always in fear. CCTV footage of the attack appears to show the ambulance was struck little more than a metre away from the crater left by a previous explosion.<\/p>\n \u201cI am scared to go to work after the attack, especially when I hear any kind of buzzing noise,\u201d she says. \u201cI have to do my job though.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Twice every day, Liubov Martynenko leaves the underground maternity ward where she works in Kherson and travels by ambulance to collect meals from another hospital in the Ukrainian city\u2019s \u201cred zone\u201d, close to the Dnipro River and the Russian forces on the other side. On 4 June , just before midday, the vehicle entered the<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":51438,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[918,1233,1123,178,2344,1741,674,261],"class_list":{"0":"post-51437","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-crime-justice","8":"tag-development","9":"tag-gaza","10":"tag-global","11":"tag-hospitals","12":"tag-sudan","13":"tag-target","14":"tag-ukraine","15":"tag-war"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51437","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=51437"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51437\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/51438"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=51437"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=51437"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=51437"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}