{"id":356,"date":"2011-09-14T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-09-14T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","slug":"","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/?p=356","title":{"rendered":"Syria: Red Crescent Workers Under Attack"},"content":{"rendered":"

\nUN Commission Should Investigate Ambulance Shooting in Homs<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n(New York, September 14, 2011) – A merciless attack on a Red
\nCrescent ambulance is the latest evidence of grave danger to humanitarian
\nworkers in the embattled Syrian city of Homs, Human Rights Watch said today.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe September 7 attack on the ambulance by unknown
\nassailants injured three rescuers and the wounded patient it was transporting.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe attack highlights the need for an on-the-ground,
\nindependent investigation into human rights violations in Syria, Human Rights
\nWatch said.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe following day, September 8, security forces at a
\ncheckpoint in the Khalidiyya neighborhood of Homs stopped a Red Crescent
\nvehicle on its way to drop off a staff member at his home and then insulted and
\nbeat the driver, accusing him and the Red Crescent of “rescuing protesters and
\ngang members.” The incident has been documented in a complaint submitted to the
\nRed Crescent by one of its staff members.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Syrian government has not commented on the September 7
\nor 8 attacks on Red Crescent staff and the ambulance.\n<\/p>\n

\nThe Commission of Inquiry established by the UN Human Rights
\nCouncil on August 23 and whose members were named on September 12, should
\nensure that attacks and harassment of medical rescuers are one of the
\npriorities of their work, Human Rights Watch said.\n<\/p>\n

\n“If Red Crescent volunteers are not safe from harm, who is?”
\nsaid Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Attacks
\non humanitarian workers are unacceptable in any context, and the United Nations
\ncommission should make investigation of this incident a priority.”\n<\/p>\n

\nHuman Rights Watch reviewed an internal incident report of
\nthe September 7 attack prepared by Red Crescent volunteers who were in the
\nambulance.\n<\/p>\n

\nResearchers for Human Rights Watch also interviewed one of
\nthe volunteers and reviewed photos of the ambulance following the attack.
\nAccording to the report and the volunteer, the ambulance was hit with 31
\nbullets from four sides. A Red Crescent volunteer who was in the ambulance told
\nHuman Rights Watch that there was no fighting going on around their vehicle
\nwhen they came under fire.\n<\/p>\n

\nAccording to the incident report prepared by the Red
\nCrescent volunteers, a Red Crescent ambulance with license plate 269837 set out
\nto the Warshe neighborhood of Homs at 10:15pm after receiving an emergency
\ncall. The vehicle carried four Red Crescent rescuers and a driver. A security
\ncheckpoint at the entrance of the neighborhood allowed them to proceed to treat
\nthe wounded. After picking up a man injured with two bullet wounds and while
\ndriving him to the hospital, the ambulance came under heavy fire from four
\nsides: rear, left, right, and above.\n<\/p>\n

\nThree of the Red Crescent rescuers were gravely wounded by the
\nbullets: Hakam Dara’ al-Seba`i, Muhammad Hakam Mubarak, and Abdel Hameed
\nal-Fajr. The injured patient in the ambulance was also hit by additional
\nbullets. The driver escaped injury and managed to drive the ambulance to the
\nBarr Hospital.\n<\/p>\n

\nAccording to one of the rescuers, their ambulance had its
\ndistinctive blue and red warning lights on and was clearly marked and visible.
\n“We were the only vehicle on the street, and there were no street lights. So
\nyou could not miss us,” he told Human Rights Watch. “Fire came from all sides.
\nI did not see those shooting at us, as I ducked my head. Much of the fire came
\nfrom above. It must have been the security forces posted on rooftops. Why would
\nthe antigovernment folks open fire on us while we were transporting a wounded
\nman from their own neighborhood?“\n<\/p>\n

\nPhotos of the vehicle, taken by Red Crescent volunteers the
\nday after the incident, show that it was clearly marked as a Red Crescent
\nvehicle and appear to confirm the large number of hits on the vehicle.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis is not the first attack on rescuers or Red Crescent
\nvehicles since the beginning of antigovernment protests in Syria. Residents
\nfrom the southern governorate of Daraa told Human Rights Watch that security
\nforces had opened fire on several occasions on medical personnel trying to
\nreach the injured during the crackdown in March-April. In one instance in
\nMarch, an ambulance came under fire and a doctor and a nurse were killed. The
\nauthorities later blamed the attack on “armed gangs.”\n<\/p>\n

\nFor more Human Rights Watch reporting on Syria, please
\nvisit:\n<\/p>\n

\nhttp:\/\/www.hrw.org\/middle-eastn-africa\/syria<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\nUN Commission Should Investigate Ambulance Shooting in Homs<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n(New York, September 14, 2011) – A merciless attack on a Red
\nCrescent ambulance is the latest evidence of grave danger to humanitarian
\nworkers in the embattled Syrian city of Homs, Human Rights Watch said today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dchrs.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}