A decade ago, the UN Security Council unanimously passed Resolution 2286 condemning attacks on health care facilities and personnel in conflict. While this resolution was hailed as a turning point, attacks on health care have since skyrocketed. 2025 saw a record 1,981 health workers and patients killed, more than twice as many killings as in […]
The Assad family ruled Syria for 53 years, overseeing decades of repression, a crackdown on pro-democracy protests in 2011, and 14 years of brutal armed conflict. Following nearly two years of transition after the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024, Maram Haddad – a Syrian expert who serves as PHR’s Deputy Director of […]
October 2, 2026
Attacks on Health Care, Mass Atrocities, Sexual Violence
The Trump administration’s sanctions (Executive Order 14,203) on the International Criminal Court (ICC) will lead to “direct, irreparable harm” to survivors of grave human rights abuses around the globe, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) argues in a new amicus brief filed at the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York in American […]
Regional and international actors must act now to help deescalate mounting conflict in Ethiopia, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said today. Ethiopia stands on the brink of resuming widespread conflict, following reports of the Tigray People’s Liberation Front’s (TPLF) seizure of several airports in Tigray and offensive against federal forces in Amhara and Afar, increasing […]
Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH) have conducted extensive research on attacks on health care in Ethiopia. Their August 2026 research brief, Stolen, Broken, Destroyed: How Impunity Has Fueled Ongoing Attacks on Health Care in Ethiopia, shows how years of impunity have turned […]
Russian forces must immediately cease their mounting attacks on medical warehouses, transport, and distribution infrastructure, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said today, following multiple strikes against medical supply facilities over twelve days that reportedly destroyed hundreds of metric tons of medicines and the storage capacity that Ukraine’s health system and population depends on. “Destroying a […]
The Trump administration’s “America First Global Health Strategy” has damaged efforts to respond to the most urgent public health crises facing the world, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) said today. September 18, 2026 marks one year since the launch of the America First Global Health Strategy, which represented a new approach to U.S. global health […]
Africa is responding to an active Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of the Congo — in a global health landscape that has shifted sharply beneath it. Financing is being reconfigured, donor commitments have contracted, and the surveillance, treatment and workforce arrangements Africa has relied on for two decades can no longer be assumed. This […]
NEW YORK — As the risk of renewed armed conflict in Ethiopia’s Tigray region grows and conflicts in the Amhara and Afar regions continue, all armed forces must cease the deliberate attacks on hospitals and health workers that have nearly collapsed the health system, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Organization for Justice and […]
Attacks on health care have become a major feature of armed conflict in Ethiopia. Attacks and threats to health care infrastructure, supply chains, and the health care workforce continue to be used as a tactic in conflict-affected regions of Ethiopia, including Tigray, Amhara, and Afar.
