newspaper revealedWashington PostThe Russian bombing targeted 9 health facilities across Ukraine, including the maternity hospital in Mariupol, the besieged city on the Sea of Azov.
The American newspaper documented the nine incidents following it analyzed more than 500 videos and photos, reviewed the statements of Ukrainian officials, and spoke to Ayyad witnesses and health center employees. Officials said that three of the accidents that targeted health facilities resulted in deaths, while three other accidents targeted health facilities for women and children.
In one of the deadliest incidents, Russian forces fired a ballistic missile carrying a cluster munition that struck the central hospital in the town of Vohlidar in the breakaway Donetsk region on February 24, according to clips obtained and analyzed in a Human Rights Watch report.
The munition struck just outside the hospital, killing four and wounding 10 civilians, six of whom were health care workers.
“Hospitals and medical facilities are protected by international humanitarian law,” ICRC spokesman Jason Strazioso said in an email.
A maternity hospital in Mariupol was subjected to Russian bombing, killing at least three people and wounding 17, on March 9.
In addition to the strikes in Vohlidar and Mariupol, three people were killed following an attack on an intensive care hospital in Vasilievka, according to officials.
The official channel of the Zaporizhzhya Regional Military Administration reported on Telegram that a medical facility in the southeastern city of Vasilievka was bombed by Russian missiles on March 1, killing three people and wounding four others.
On February 27, the Russians bombed the ear, nose and throat department building of a hospital in Volnovaka, a small city in the breakaway Donetsk region, according to the Ukrainian parliament’s Telegram channel.
‘violation of international law’
Medical facilities are “protected objects” under the law unless they are being used for military purposes, said Priyanka Motaparthy, director of the Armed Conflict, Counter-Terrorism and Human Rights Project at Columbia Law School.
And accusations of targeting hospitals are not new to Russia. Physicians for Human Rights has confirmed 492 attacks on healthcare facilities in Syria and 847 deaths of medical staff there between March 2011 and December 2017 at the hands of Russian and Syrian forces.
Other organizations, including Doctors Without Borders, have similar findings. However, Russia has described such accusations as “a figment of the imagination.”
International law experts who reviewed the Washington Post’s findings said the evidence appeared to be violating these laws by Russian forces.
In at least one case, a pro-Russian media outlet claimed that the damaged hospital in Ukraine was being used for military purposes. The American newspaper did not find any evidence to support this claim.
Motaparthy said the investigation into the incidents should take into account any statement made by the Russian military as to why it bombed the hospital, but the hospitals are assumed to be civilian.
She noted that “attacks in which there has been clearly significant damage and the killing of civilians appear to violate the laws of war, and that armies should avoid harming hospitals, even if they target nearby military targets.”
