Investigations
Medical Neutrality
Modern war often turns civilians into deliberate targets. Armies shell cities, obstruct the flow of food and medical supplies, and use human shields. Militaries also undermine health care and retaliate against the health professionals who treat the sick and wounded. This violation of medical neutrality is a war crime, a grave breach of the Geneva Conventions or laws of war.
PHR promotes the principle of noninterference with medical services in times of armed conflict: Warring factions must protect civilians; allow sick and wounded civilians and soldiers to receive care; and refrain from interfering with medical facilities, transports, and personnel.
PHR documents the deliberate targeting of health care systems and personnel, and advocates accountability for violators.
In a groundbreaking investigation that helped define "medical neutrality," PHR's 1989 medical investigation in El Salvador reported on allegations of the assault, arrest, intimidation, and execution of health care workers.
In India, PHR documented deliberate interference with medical care to the sick and wounded in strife-torn Kashmir. In Thailand, PHR collected testimony about assaults on doctors treating wounded anti-government protestors. In Panama, PHR showed how the military selectively blocked access to hospitals, and in Kuwait, PHR collected evidence of Iraq's methodical and devastating dismantling of that nation's health care system at the start of the Persian Gulf War.
PHR's major reports on medical neutrality include:
Medicine under Siege in Former Yugoslavia, 1991-1995 - Issued after a four-year investigation, this landmark report chronicled brutal attacks on hospitals, doctors, and medical convoys including the mass murder of patients, staff, and others taking refuge in a hospital in Vukovar, Croatia, and advocated for accountability.
El Salvador: Health Care Under Siege - In this report PHR investigates the obstruction of health care to the civilian population; the assault, intimidation, arrest, torture, and execution of health workers; attacks on hospitals and clinics; and the impact of ten years of civil war on the country's medical institutions.
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