With the war in Ukraine the targeting of healthcare settings has once again come under the spotlight. Madlen Davies reports on the efforts to gather evidence of war crimes—and why so few incidents have been successfully prosecuted
Oleh Tkachenko was delivering bread when he heard an explosion. He works as a pastor in a Baptist church in Vuhledar, a city in the southern Donetsk Oblast region of Ukraine. He ran to the city’s hospital immediately and saw its windows were shattered, with three people lying in the street and two on the hospital’s steps. One woman was already dead. He helped a mother struggling with a pram to a bomb shelter. On the way he saw two ambulances and the first aid station completely burnt. There were hundreds of pieces of shrapnel everywhere. “At first I was puzzled,” he said. “I couldn’t understand what it was but then I saw the head of the rocket and I saw right away it was a cluster munition.” The 24 February attack killed four civilians and injured 10 people, six of them healthcare workers, according to Human Rights Watch.1
The attack left the hospital without power. The city now has no water source and only emergency services are running as the fighting continues. “The hospital is in a really dangerous place and it’s practically impossible to work there, it’s on the side where there’s constant shooting,” said Tkachenko. “It would be crazy to work there and take in patients. I don’t think anyone is offering medical services in the town now.”
Hospital attacks began on the first day of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The World Health Organization has verified 72 attacks on health settings.2
Intentional attacks on hospitals have been illegal for more than 150 years but only two people have …