The Scale of the Crisis
Attacks on healthcare workers and medical facilities have reached a devastating scale across conflict zones worldwide. In 2025 alone, the World Health Organization’s Surveillance System for Attacks on Health Care recorded 1,348 attacks on medical facilities. Those strikes killed 1,981 people — doctors, nurses, patients, and bystanders whose only connection to the war was needing or delivering care.
Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), also known as Doctors Without Borders, works in over 70 countries. Over the past decade, 21 MSF staff members died in 15 separate incidents while carrying out their duties. These are not statistics — they are colleagues, caregivers, and humanitarians who chose to serve in the world’s most dangerous places.
“What was once considered exceptional has now become commonplace,” said Dr Javid Abdelmoneim, MSF’s International President. Medical care in active conflict zones faces extreme and growing danger, and the systems designed to protect it have largely failed.
A Decade of Broken Promises
Resolution 2286 and Its Failure
On 3 May 2016, the United Nations Security Council unanimously adopted Resolution 2286. More than 80 member states committed to protecting medical personnel, healthcare infrastructure, transport, and equipment in conflict settings. The resolution came directly after the devastating 2015 US airstrike on MSF’s trauma hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan, which killed 42 people — including 14 MSF staff.
Resolution 2286 reaffirmed that hospitals are protected under International Humanitarian Law (IHL). It demanded an end to impunity for those who attack them. Ten years on, that demand remains largely unmet.
States Are Not Upholding Their Commitments
Instead of declining, attacks on healthcare have increased. Perpetrating states often respond with denial, claim accidental errors, or accuse healthcare workers of losing their protected status — without evidence. Health workers are increasingly treated as suspects rather than protected individuals.
MSF UK’s Executive Director, Dr Natalie Roberts, stated plainly: attacks have not only continued — they have grown. Patients die. Medical staff are killed and wounded. Healthcare providers face punishment simply for helping people in conflict zones.
Where Attacks Are Happening
A Global Pattern of Violence
The pattern of attacks spans multiple continents and conflict zones. Over the past decade, attacks have included:
- Airstrikes on hospitals in Syria and Yemen
- Shelling of hospitals in Ukraine and the Occupied Palestinian Territory
- Drone strikes on a hospital in Myanmar
- Attacks on clearly marked ambulances in Cameroon, Haiti, and Lebanon
Each of these incidents violated the protections established under international humanitarian law. Moreover, each went largely unanswered by the states responsible.
The Occupied Palestinian Territory and Sudan
In Gaza, the destruction of healthcare infrastructure has been near total. MSF teams have been forced to evacuate medical facilities on 17 separate occasions. Eight MSF staff members and many of their family members have been killed. Medical activities could only restart in three of those evacuated facilities.
In Sudan, a drone strike in April 2026 hit Al-Jabalain Hospital in White Nile state, striking both the operating theatre and the maternity ward. At least 10 people died — seven of them medical staff. The attack happened during a children’s immunisation campaign. MSF called it “appalling” and demanded an immediate end to violence against medical facilities.
The Human Cost on the Ground
Communities Left Without Care
When a hospital is bombed, the destruction extends far beyond the building itself. Lifesaving services stop — sometimes permanently. Communities lose access to emergency care, safe childbirth, vaccinations, and essential treatment for chronic illness. Often, no alternatives exist.
The numbers tell part of that story. In Sudan in 2025, MSF teams carried out nearly 850,000 outpatient consultations, admitted over 95,600 patients, and assisted almost 29,000 births. Furthermore, in Gaza during the same period, teams conducted 913,000 outpatient consultations, admitted nearly 54,000 patients, and delivered 89,800 mental health sessions. In Ukraine, MSF ambulances referred 10,700 patients — 60 percent with war-related injuries — while mobile clinics provided 45,300 consultations and teams conducted 9,750 physiotherapy sessions.
When People Can No Longer Reach Care
Beyond the physical destruction, fear becomes a weapon. When people are afraid to leave their homes, they do not seek medical attention. Consequently, treatable conditions become fatal. Childbirth becomes dangerous. Mental health crises go unaddressed. The longer health infrastructure stays destroyed or abandoned, the deeper the damage to entire communities.
What Must Change Now
States Must Act, Not Just Speak
Dr Abdelmoneim put it directly: “MSF demands that states respect their obligations and commitment under Resolution 2286 for greater protection and accountability. The protection granted to us and to our patients under International Humanitarian Law must be led by action, not just words.”
Therefore, the call is clear. States that signed Resolution 2286 must stop making excuses. They must stop pointing fingers. They must act.
A Specific Agenda for Accountability
MSF and other humanitarian organizations are calling for concrete steps from governments, particularly those with influence as UN Security Council members. Specifically, governments must:
- Condemn every attack that violates Resolution 2286 — including those carried out by allies
- Facilitate independent, transparent investigations into every incident
- Use diplomatic, economic, and political tools to pressure states that carry out or enable these attacks
The UK, as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, faces particular scrutiny. Despite claiming to champion international law, the UK government has repeatedly failed to publicly condemn attacks on healthcare — from Gaza to Sudan. MSF UK’s Dr Roberts stressed that the government must finally match its commitments with real action.
Protection Must Mean Something
Medical neutrality is not a courtesy — it is a binding legal obligation. Hospitals, ambulances, and healthcare workers carry protections under international law precisely because their work serves everyone, regardless of which side of a conflict they are on. When states allow those protections to erode, they do not just endanger individual workers. They dismantle the entire system of humanitarian care that civilian populations depend on.
Attacks on healthcare are not inevitable. They happen because states allow them to happen, and because impunity has replaced accountability. MSF’s message on the 10th anniversary of Resolution 2286 is unambiguous: medical staff deserve far more than empty words.
