UN envoy condemns repeated attacks on health facilities and their staff

The UN Secretary-General's Special Representative in Libya, Ghassan Salameh, has strongly condemned the attacks he described as "ferocious" against health care institutions and staff.

Since the beginning of the Hifter attack on Tripoli in early April, more than 37 attacks have been recorded against health care facilities and their personnel, including hospitals, field hospitals and civilian and military ambulances, said Salameh in a statement.

The attacks, described as "scandalous" in the statement, which damaged at least 19 ambulances and 19 hospitals, killed 11 people and wounded more than 33, although their actual number is probably much higher. .

The statement also highlighted the airstrikes launched by Hifter forces in late July on two field hospitals and two ambulances, killing at least four doctors and one paramedic and injuring at least eight other medical personnel.

The declaration added:

Despite repeated condemnations and flagrant disregard for international humanitarian standards and conventions, these brutal attacks continued. Two minutes of air strikes against a field hospital in Aziziyah district reportedly injured at least four medical personnel.

The UN envoy pointed out that the deliberate targeting of health workers, health care facilities and ambulances is a war crime and that 's the only way to go about it. it can constitute a crime against humanity when it is committed in the context of large-scale or systematic attacks against the civilian population.

He continued to say:

We will not stand idly by as doctors and paramedics are targeted every day as they risk their lives to save others.

We will spare no effort to bring those responsible for these crimes to justice.

The statement notes that international humanitarian law strictly prohibits attacks on hospitals, other medical facilities, medical personnel and medical transports.