The escalation of conflict in the Middle East coincides with an emerging trend of attacks on healthcare. Protection of health personnel, health services and humanitarian workers is no longer respected. This compromises the achievement of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals 3 – towards health for all, and 16 – towards justice and peace. The Centre for Global Health at the University of Oslo, the Peace Research Institute Oslo and the Norwegian Red Cross co-organised a meeting exploring how conflict impacts health systems and potential solutions to protect and maintain health care services.

SUMMARYBetween January 2012 and December 2013, the ICRC studied the effects of violence on health care during armed conflict and other emergencies in 23 countries. Information was collected, through various sources, on 1809 violent incidents that involved the use or threat of violence against health-care personnel, the wounded and the sick, health-care facilities and medical transports.This second interim report analyses the main patterns of violence: -Local, far more than international, health-care providers, bear the brunt of violence, as was the case in 2012.-State armed forces and security forces, and armed non-State actors, are the main perpetrators, each of them being responsible for approximately one-third of all the recorded violence against the delivery of health care. -The report on health-care facilities shows that they are affected mainly by looting, direct attacks, and disruptive armed entry.The ICRC will continue to gather information on such incidents and publish, in 2015, an exhaustive analysis that will complement the final project report.

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