Ambulances targeted in Syria conflict

LONDON: Ambulances have been intentionally and repeatedly targeted in Syria, researchers said on Tuesday, calling for more efforts to protect medical workers caught UP IN THE CONLICT.

The research, in the peer-reviewed journal BMJ Global Health, analysed reports of 243 attacks on ambulances IN 2016 AND 2017 AND FOUND MORE THAN half were deliberately targeted.

“There is no ambiguity in the results: ambulances are directly and repeatedly targeted in Syria,” Hayes Wong, one of the authors of the report, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The attacks studied were mostly in opposition-held enclaves in and around Aleppo, Idlib and Damascus and nearly 90 per cent were carried out by Syrian government forces and their Russian allies, the paper said.

There have been repeated reports of attacks on medical workers and healthcare facilities during Syria’s EIGHT-YEAR CONLICT, EVEN THOUGH BOTH are protected by international law.

Among the most prominent medical workers in Syria are the “White Helmet” rescue workers.

The group, who say they are neutral, have been credited in the West with saving thousands of people in rebel-held areas.

Syrian President Bashar Al-assad and his backers accuse them of acting as propaganda tools and proxies of extremist-led insurgents.

Paramedics on ambulances are particularly vulnerable to attack as they are highly visible and can be targeted as they attend to casualties in the aftermath of an attack, according to the research paper.