War crimes targeting health workers, patients and facilities should be prioritised for international criminal prosecution, senior nursing and medical leaders have urged.<\/p>\n
The number of health workers killed annually in conflicts<\/a> has jumped five-fold in less than a decade, and the Royal College of Nursing (RCN) and British Medical Association (BMA) have called for action from the UK government to fully back international criminal court (ICC) prosecutions of perpetrators.<\/p>\n There were 175 health worker killings in conflict in 2016, rising to 932 in 2024, according to a new report from the RCN\u2019s International Nursing Academy, using data from Insecurity Insights. The data is subject to a lengthy cross-checking process and likely to rise \u2013 for example, its initial report on 2023 included 143 health worker killings in Palestine, a figure which had risen to 414 by the time of their 2024 report.<\/p>\n Deaths in Palestine<\/a>, Ukraine and Lebanon accounted for a significant rise since 2023, and there have been corresponding rises in health worker arrests<\/a> and attacks on health facilities. There have already been more than 1,200 attacks on health workers recorded by Insecurity Insight this year, a total expected to climb due to delayed reporting.<\/p>\n \u201cAny killing of any member of nursing staff, in any context or for any reason, is entirely abhorrent,\u201d said Prof Nicola Ranger, general secretary and chief executive of the RCN.<\/p>\n \u201cThe UK government must do everything in its power to support the upholding of international law, including supporting the ICC to investigate and prosecute those responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n Dr Andrew Green, chair of the British Medical Association\u2019s ethics committee, said: \u201cWhen states and armed groups break international humanitarian law with attacks on the wounded and sick, health facilities and health workers, they must be held to account, and governments around the world, including our own, all have a part to play in that process.\u201d<\/p>\n Ranger said attacks on health systems left deep and lasting scars on communities, and placed them under immense strain as they sought to deal with widespread civilian injuries and escalating public health needs. She also called for UK overseas aid spending to be restored<\/a> to 0.7% of GDP \u201cto support the rebuilding of devastated health systems across the globe\u201d.<\/p>\n Medics tend to the injured at Nasser hospital, Gaza, following Israeli strikes on 3 December 2023. Photograph: Mahmud Hams\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n The report, Care Amongst the Chaos<\/a>, includes testimony from six nurses and a midwife working in Afghanistan, Gaza, Lebanon and Myanmar.<\/p>\n Asmaan, a nurse from Afghanistan said she and her colleagues faced intimidation and were unable to offer high-quality care.<\/p>\n \u201cMost villages have no hospitals; patients die in ambulances because there is no emergency care, no oxygen, no nurses,\u201d she said. \u201cWe are threatened by caretakers: \u2018If something happens to my child, my husband is a Taliban, and he will come after you.\u2019 How can we work safely like this?\u201d<\/p>\n Omar, a nurse from Gaza where more than 1,200 healthcare workers have been killed by Israeli airstrikes in the past two years, said staff at his hospital worked around the clock to \u201ccare for large numbers of patients with complex and traumatic injuries \u2013 including amputations, diabetic complications, and gunshot wounds \u2013 in an environment where both resources and personnel are increasingly scarce\u201d.<\/p>\n He said the scenes encountered during shifts inside the hospital, including \u201cthe lingering scent of blood\u201d would \u201ccontinue to haunt me in my dreams\u201d, calling for \u201ca simple thing: life, then life, then life in peace\u201d.<\/p>\n The 1949 Geneva conventions outlawed attacks on healthcare facilities and workers in war zones, with later resolutions further tightening international humanitarian law<\/a>.<\/p>\n