FARS -- Bombing Hospitals and Clinics: Something Is Very Wrong in Yemen --

Mon Jan 11, 2016 11:59

Bombing Hospitals and Clinics: Something Is Very Wrong in Yemen

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TEHRAN (FNA)- The United States provided free tutorials in Afghanistan and Iraq on how to bomb hospitals and clinics, kill doctors, nurses and patients, and get away with it.

Saudi leaders didn’t ignore the advice. They have just bombed another Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital in Yemen, killing and wounding several medical staff and patients. It marks the third attack in as many months against a facility associated with the medical charity.

 

MSF says it cannot confirm the origin of the attack on the Shiara Hospital, which is located in the Razeh district. But the organization notes that "planes were seen flying over the facility at the time." And we all know the resistance group of Ansarullah or Yemeni forces don’t have fighter jets flying over the besieged country. We also know the main culprits here are the Saudis and the mere extras, which have been waging an aerial assault on Yemen for nearly ten months with the backing of the United States and NATO.

 

The regime changers are responsible for the two other bombings of MSF-linked facilities as well. To substantiate, the organization says, "On Oct. 27, Haydan hospital was destroyed by an airstrike by the Saudi-led coalition, and on Dec. 3 a health centre in Taiz was also hit by the coalition, killing and wounding several people."

 

This is while the Saudis are regularly informed of the GPS coordinates of the medical sites where MSF works. So there is no way the Saudis with the capacity to carry out an airstrike or launch a rocket would not have known that the Shiara Hospital was a functioning health facility providing critical services and supported by MSF.

 

Under international humanitarian law, patients and medical facilities must be respected. This is while in violation of international humanitarian law, Saudi warplanes bombed Shiara Hospital three times, reducing its services to stabilization, emergency, maternity and lifesaving activities.

 

What’s more, the third Saudi attack came just days after the United Nations warned that civilians in Yemen are suffering a "terrible toll,” thanks largely to the US-supplied cluster bombs. And if that’s not enough, the latest attack follows a Saudi-led bombing earlier this month which hit a rehabilitation centre for the blind in Sana’a! So as warned by the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Saudis are “deliberately attacking hospitals and clinics in Yemen.”

 

Considering the above, it is obvious that something is very wrong in Yemen. And helping the unjust in this foolish war is not the way forward. Under international law, targeting hospitals to reinstall a puppet ruler is not an acceptable resolution to an internal dispute either.

 

Any decent human being knows that the neutrality of healthcare facilities and staff must be respected. They should never be attacked, and surgical and medical supplies should never be blocked from reaching hospitals in areas under siege – something the Saudi-led and US-backed invading forces have been doing for months in a flagrant violation of international law.

 

As is customary, the Saudi murderers deny being aware that their airstrikes target hospitals and clinics – just as their chief military patron and supplier, the US, keeps denying the evident truth of having destroyed several hospitals in Afghanistan. It is crucial for the international civil society to disregard the latest Saudi charade. Instead, they should work together to establish an independent, international mechanism to investigate Saudi violations and abuses in Yemen. The civil society is not always expected to make the right decision. It is, however, expected to make the decision.