Hospitals destroyed. Health workers targeted. Survivors of sexual violence left without care. Ethiopia’s escalating human rights crisis demands urgent attention – and action. Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) and the Organization for Justice and Accountability in the Horn of Africa (OJAH) have documented attacks on health care and the devastating consequences of sexual and reproductive […]
October 29, 2026
Attacks on Health Care, Mass Atrocities, Reproductive Justice, Sexual Violence
Women and children in Gaza continue to suffer from poor health due to ongoing violence and Israeli restrictions on medical supplies more than one year since the ceasefire was reached in Gaza on October 10, 2025, according to new data published today by Médecins du Monde (MdM) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR). Interviews with […]
From Al Jazeera: “In September 2025, 39-year-old Ismael Ayala-Uribe died just one month after entering California’s Adelanto ICE Processing Center. He was one of more than 50 people to die in immigration custody during Donald Trump’s first 500 days back in office. His family says he repeatedly complained of intense pain and asked for medical […]
PHR’s work to strengthen pathways to justice and healing for survivors of sexual violence and torture in Iraq and Ukraine has produced landmark achievements, made possible by the rare and meaningful access we have gained to key government bodies in both countries. Prior to PHR’s intervention in Iraq in 2017, survivors of sexual violence and […]
PHR’s work in Iraq is centered on building up the country’s ability to investigate crimes of torture, including sexual violence. Our focus is support to investigations of international crimes committed by Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in northern Iraq, particularly against the long-persecuted Yazidi people, who suffered a brutal 2014 attack by ISIS […]
In response to the Trump administration’s new sanctions on the International Criminal Court (ICC), the following quote is attributable to Sam Zarifi, JD, executive director of PHR: “The Trump administration’s new sanctions on the ICC are an attack on children who survived conflict-related sexual violence in Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The sanctions are […]
In a health clinic in Uganda, a doctor recounted to PHR that five babies were born HIV positive among the 20 deliveries at the facility between mid-January and mid-April 2025 – a devastating setback after years of virtually eliminating mother-to-child transmission of HIV. The head of another Ugandan health facility described his feeling of helplessness […]
To Permanent Representatives of Member and Observer States of the United Nations (UN) Human Rights Council (Geneva, Switzerland) 8 October 2026 Ethiopia: The Human Rights Council should convene a special session to address the quickly deteriorating human rights situation and prevent further atrocity crimes Excellencies, As armed hostilities have resumed on a large scale in […]
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
