Statement by Mr. Petr Iliichev, Chargé d'Affaires, at the Security Council on Protection of civilians and medical care in armed conflict
We are grateful to the Secretary-General and the briefers for participating in today’s meeting.
The issue of the protection of civilians has longbeen inscribed in the Security Council’s agenda. We believe that it is justified for that issue to remain the focus of the Council’s attention. As the nature of conflict changes, the issue of the provision of health care for and protection of the sick and wounded is of particular importance. In many hotspots today, hostilities occur in densely populated areas whose inhabitants are heavily dependent on the smooth functioning of the medical infrastructure. The parties to the conflict, wherever it is taking place, should take all necessary measures to ensure the safety of civilians. That includes providing humanitarian and medical assistance.
The work of the international community in should seek to carry out humanitarian tasks, such as alleviating the suffering of civilians. However, we do not believe that it is right to disconnect the matter of medical assistance from the general context of the protection of civilians and efforts to settle conflicts. We highly value the efforts of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in lending assistance to civilians, including through the provision of medication, the training of staff, the provision of medical assistance and the sharing of knowledge on the norms of international humanitarian law. We believe that the proposals made by the ICRC to review the best practices in that area warrant additional study.
The need civilians have for medical assistance is often used, contrary to the provisions of international law, to achieve military and other advantages. Once again, we must draw attention to the disastrous situation regarding access to medical assistance in eastern Ukraine. Indiscriminate attacks by the armed forces of Ukraine have destroyed much civilian infrastructure, including hospitals. For example, in January, artillery fire hit hospitals and middle schools in Makiivka. Over the past three years, as a result of the blockade from Kyiv, civilians have been unable to receive the necessary care and medication. The report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict (S/2017/414) highlights Kyiv’s ban on trade with the south-east of Ukraine, affecting, inter alia, the provision of medical supplies to the area.
Our country, unlike the Ukrainian authorities, has provided and continues to provide full-scale assistance, including health care, to the citizens of the south-east, whose lives and health are threatened daily by the targeted action of the Ukrainian Government. Appeals from international humanitarian workers and human rights advocates, who often note that it is the most vulnerable who suffer from the blockade, including children, the elderly and persons with disabilities, have not led to any results. We would like to address our appeal to the delegation of Ukraine and call for Ukraine to lift the inhumane restrictive measures that it has imposed on its own people.
Elsewhere, humanitarian workers, including medical personnel, have increasingly been the victims of terrorist armed groups. We do not have to look very far for examples, such as the attack by Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant fighters on the military hospital in Afghanistan in February and on ICRC staff in March. We should also recall tactics such as disguising fighters’ sheltmedical centres, the use of the wounded and the sick as human shields, and the creation of obstacles to the provision of humanitarian assistance, as well as the forcible seizure of medications from civilians. In eastern Aleppo, the issue of medical evacuation was brazenly used as a bargaining chip by terrorists. There has been grim information regarding attacks by terrorists on medical workers, which underscores the need for additional efforts by States, the United Nations and humanitarian organizations to strengthen mechanisms to ensure the safety of humanitarian staff.
At this stage, we believe that the legal frameworks we have for dealing with the issues at hand are quite sufficient. The focus should be on practical measures to uphold the relevant principles and standards. Resolution 2286 (2016) provides States and parties to a conflict with the necessary guidelines on the issue. Regarding the set of health-care recommendations proposed by the Secretary-General in 2016, we have already shared our assessment on that matter. We believe that those recommendations could provide a basis for future work, but we should not, in our opinion, forget that they also contain a number of contentious issues that go beyond resolution 2286 (2016) and the norms of international humanitarian law.
We have studied the recent report of the SecretaryGeneral on the protection of civilians in armed conflict. We support the intention to ensure the pooling of efforts to prevent conflict and protect civilians. In our view, such an approach should be based on international law and should not impose any artificial hierarchies; it could then lead to positive results. However, we would like to warn against any arbitrary interpretation of the norms of international humanitarian law and other documents. We do not challenge the need for measures to ensure that those responsible for the killing of civilians, including medical staff, should be held to account. But we do not share the rosy assessment of the activities of the International Criminal Court with regard to the so-called mechanism for conducting investigations in Syria. As we have noted, the establishment of that mechanism was a blatant violation of the Charter of the United Nations.
The current skyrocketing level of confrontation and politicization in international affairs has also had an adverse impact on the matter of the protection of humanitarian and medical personnel. Against the backdrop of uncorroborated allegations against Russia, the lack of response in 2016 to the strike on a Russian mobile hospital that was lending assistance to Syrians was a blatant example of double standards. As a result of the strike, two nurses were killed and one doctor seriously wounded. Those who only want to raise anti-Russian hype were not interested in the information on the overfilled stockpiles of medicines in eastern Aleppo, which militants kept from the population suffering from a lack of medications. Double standards are visible in the information available on the military campaigns in Iraq, Yemen, Afghanistan and other countries and on the actions of the so-called coalition in Syria. There is a so-called coalition in Syria. Civilian infrastructure, including health facilities, have been subject to strikes with frightening regularity, including international armed forces. The umber of casualties caused by such attacks amounts to hundreds, if not thousands of killed.
For exampn February, as a result of a rocket strike on Idlib, the ICRC mission, including medical equipment, was damaged and personnel were injured. As a result of strikes carried out by the international coalition on 17 and 30 April on a field hospital in Al-Tabka,Syria in April, 14 civilians were killed. However, for many years, those incidents have been ignored or have been presented as unavoidable collateral damage. Given the unprecedented abuse in the information sphere, the reliability and credibility of data on the protection of civilians, including attacks on medical staff, and the weighing of all the factors and circumstances, are of particular importance. All factors and circumstances should be taken into account. We believe that the relevant bodies of the United Nations should be guided by the imperatives of thorough verification and unbiased analysis of the information that comes to them. That also pertains to the report of the Secretary-General on the protection of civilians in armed conflict.
In conclusion, we would like once again to express our gratitude to all those who, even in harsh conditions, provide medical care to civilian populations in zones of armed conflicts, often at the cost of their own lives.
