"From inside our ICUs and maternity wings, it feels cruel, inhumane and deliberate."
 | | Marianna Vishegirskaya stands outside a maternity hospital that was damaged by shelling in Mariupol, Ukraine, Wednesday, March 9, 2022.Mstyslav Chernov/The Associated Press |
|
The photograph of a woman wrapped in blankets, covered in blood, standing outside a destroyed maternity hospital in Mariupol has become one of the iconic images from the war in Ukraine, drawing world outrage. |
And yet what it shows is hardly an anomaly. The frequency — the routineness — of attacks on health care infrastructure across Ukraine is devastating. |
Between 160 and 200 medical facilities have reportedly been damaged in Russia's unprovoked war in Ukraine. These include hospitals, clinics, maternity wards, a nursing home, an addiction treatment facility and blood banks. The structures have been hit by artillery and missiles, bullets and bombs. Once or twice is an accident. Hundreds of strikes suggest a pattern of criminality. |
According to the Ukrainian Healthcare Center, a consultancy in Kyiv, these attacks are coming at a rate of at least two a day. |
Intentionally targeting hospitals is a war crime. But it is difficult to prove intent amid the chaos of war and the fog of disinformation. |
"The evidence for potential war crimes will take years to gather, but I don't need to wait that long to know that what I'm seeing everyday is a murderous pattern," Pavlo Kovtoniuk, a co-founder of the consultancy and a former deputy health minister of Ukraine, said in the video. |
"From inside our I.C.U.s and maternity wings, it feels cruel, inhumane and deliberate," he said. |
Whether the hospital attacks are deliberate and intent can be proven is a matter for investigators. But the pattern on the ground is clear: Health care facilities are being hit on a daily basis and medical staff feel like they have targets on their backs, says Kovtoniuk. |
"If a hospital isn't safe," he says, "where is?" |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
Forward this newsletter to friends to share ideas and perspectives that will help inform their lives. They can sign up here. Do you have feedback? Email us at opiniontoday@nytimes.com. |
Contact us if you have questions about your Times account, delivery problems or other issues, visit our Help Page or contact The Times. |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment