Source: Direct Relief

Attacks on hospitals and other health facilities have been a prominent – and horrifying – feature of the war in Ukraine. A maternity and children’s hospital was bombed in Mariupol in a widely publicized attack, and Ukraine accused Russia of attacking a psychiatric hospital in Kharkiv, to name just two examples.

The country’s health minister said that Russian forces have shelled 135 hospitals and damaged 43 ambulances, and the WHO has confirmed 49 attacks on hospitals and nine on medical transport units.

“The number is astonishing in such a short period of time,” said Leonard Rubenstein, a professor and director of the Program on Human Rights and Health in Conflict Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of Public Health.