UN demands protection of hospitals in war zones amid attacks

In a resolution that draws attention to the rise in attacks on medical workers in conflicts worldwide, the UN Security Council has demanded that hospitals and clinics be protected in war zones.

The resolution, was drafted by New Zealand, Spain, Egypt, Japan and Uruguay and adopted yesterday, comes less than a week after 55 people died when a hospital was bombed in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The UN secretary general, Ban Ki-moon cited that such attacks had to end.

"When so-called surgical strikes end up hitting surgical wards, something is deeply wrong," the guardian quoted him as saying.

The resolution was supported by Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF), the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) and others.

According to Doctors Without Borders (MSF), 63 of the hospitals and clinics it supports in Syria were hit by bombing and shelling last year.

Last October, a US attack on an MSF hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz left 42 people dead. Reportedly the charity's hospitals in Yemen and South Sudan have also been repeatedly targeted.

Joanne Liu, MSF's international president, told the Security Council that such attacks afforded "only a glimpse into the brutality of war".

"We are at a deadly impasse. We can no longer assume that fully functioning hospitals - in which patients are fighting for their lives - are out of bounds. Hospitals and patients have been dragged on to the battlefield," she said.

The resolution drafted by five non-permanent Security Council members came days after the United States said its troops involved in the bombing of a MSF-run hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz would not face war crimes charges.