History
IHFFC was established in 1991 [2] and has its basis in the First Optional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, agreed in 1977.
The International Humanitarian Fact-Finding Commission (IHFFC) is an international body that is available to perform investigations of possible breaches of international humanitarian law. The Commission may investigate matters to determine what has happened, but does not pass judgment on issues it raises. [1] [2]
IHFFC was established in 1991 [2] and has its basis in the First Optional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, agreed in 1977.
The Swiss Ministry of Foreign Affairs carries out the secretariat functions. IHFFC is headquartered in Bern. 76 states have joined the body. [2]
The organization has the status of a permanent observer in the UN General Assembly. [3]
On 7 October 2015, Médecins Sans Frontières called for activating the commission, to investigate the deadly U.S. bombing of MSF's hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. MSF says it does not trust internal military inquiries into the bombing that killed 42 people, [4] which it considers a war crime. [2] USA and Afghanistan are not among the 76 signatories of the IHFFC. [2]
In 2016, Médecins Sans Frontières again called for the Commission activation, after the bombing of an MSF hospital in Yemen. [5]
The commission received its fist mission in 2017, from the OSCE, [6] to investigate the death of an OSCE ambulance driver in Ukraine. It concluded that it was caused by an anti-tank mine and “[g]iven the fact that - as was commonly known - the road was frequently used by civilian traffic, any recent laying of anti-vehicle mines constitutes a violation of IHL because of the predictable indiscriminate effect”. [7]
Russia withdrew from the commission's remit in 2019. [8]
The Commission consists of fifteen experts. On 20 February 2017 they were:
| Name | Position | Country | Member since |
|---|---|---|---|
| Prof. Thilo MARAUHN | President | Germany | 2012 |
| Dr. Elzbieta MIKOS-SKUZA | First Vice-president | Poland | 2001 |
| Dr. Mohamed Mahmoud AL KAMALI | Vice-president | United Arab Emirates | 2012 |
| Ambassador Alfredo LABBÉ | Vice-president | Chile | 2017 |
| Dr Robin McNEILL LOVE | Vice-president | United Kingdom | 2017 |
| Mr Abdulla Rashid S.A. AL-NAIMI | Member | Qatar | 2017 |
| Prof. Rachid BELHADJ | Member | Algeria | 2017 |
| Ms Laurence BOILLAT | Member | Switzerland | 2017 |
| Prof. Shuichi FURUYA | Member | Japan | 2012 |
| Dr. Åsa MOLDE | Member | Sweden | 2017 |
| Mr Mario J.A. OYARZÁBAL | Member | Argentina | 2017 |
| Mr Francisco REY MARCOS | Member | Spain | 2017 |
| Prof. Stelios E. PERRAKIS | Member | Greece | 2001 |
| Dr. Réka VARGA | Member | Hungary | 2017 |
| Dr. Justinas ŽILINSKAS | Member | Lithuania | 2012 |
Médecins Sans Frontières, named Doctors Without Borders in English, is a charity that provides humanitarian medical care. It is a non-governmental organisation (NGO) of French origin known for its projects in conflict zones and in countries affected by endemic diseases. The organisation provides care for diabetes, drug-resistant infections, HIV/AIDS, hepatitis C, tropical and neglected diseases, tuberculosis, vaccines and COVID-19. In 2019, the charity was active in 70 countries with over 35,000 personnel; mostly local doctors, nurses and other medical professionals, logistical experts, water and sanitation engineers, and administrators. Private donors provide about 90% of the organisation's funding, while corporate donations provide the rest, giving MSF an annual budget of approximately US$1.63 billion.
Kunduz is a city in northern Afghanistan, the capital of Kunduz Province. The city has an estimated population of about 268,893 as of 2015, making it about the 7th-largest city of Afghanistan, and the largest city in northeastern Afghanistan. Kunduz is in the historical Tokharistan region of Bactria, near the confluence of the Kunduz River with the Khanabad River. Kunduz is linked by highways with Kabul to the south, Mazar-i-Sharif to the west, and Badakhshan to the east. Kunduz is also linked with Dushanbe in Tajikistan to the north, via the Afghan dry port of Sherkhan Bandar. This city is famous in Afghanistan for its watermelon production.
Humanitarian aid workers belonging to United Nations organisations, PVOs / NGOs or the Red Cross / Red Crescent are among the list of protected persons under international humanitarian law that grant them immunity from attack by belligerent parties. However, attacks on humanitarian workers have occasionally occurred, and become more frequent since the 1990s and 2000s. In 2017, the Aid Worker Security Database (AWSD) documented 139 humanitarian workers killed in intentional attacks out of the estimated global population of 569,700 workers. In every year since 2013, more than 100 humanitarian workers were killed. This is attributed to a number of factors, including the increasing number of humanitarian workers deployed, the increasingly unstable environments in which they work, and the erosion of the perception of neutrality and independence. In 2012 road travel was seen to be the most dangerous context, with kidnappings of aid workers quadrupling in the last decade, reaching more aid workers victims than any other form of attack.
The 2009 Kunduz airstrike took place on Friday 4 September 2009 at roughly 2:30 am local time, 7 km (4.3 mi) southwest of Kunduz City, Kunduz province in northern Afghanistan, near the hamlets of Omar Kheil by the border of the Chahar Dara and Ali Abad districts. Responding to a call by German forces, an American F-15E fighter jet struck two fuel tankers captured by Taliban insurgents, killing over 90 civilians in the attack.
Medical neutrality refers to a principle of noninterference with medical services in times of armed conflict and civil unrest: physicians must be allowed to care for the sick and wounded, and soldiers must receive care regardless of their political affiliations; all parties must refrain from attacking and misusing medical facilities, transport, and personnel. Concepts comprising the principles of medical neutrality derive from international human rights law, medical ethics and humanitarian law. Medical neutrality may be thought of as a kind of social contract that obligates societies to protect medical personnel in both times of war and peace, and obligates medical personnel to treat all individuals regardless of religion, race, ethnicity, or political affiliation. Violations of medical neutrality constitute crimes outlined in the Geneva Conventions.
Joanne Liu is a Canadian pediatric emergency medicine physician, Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Montreal, Professor of Clinical Medicine at McGill University, and the previous International President of Médecins sans Frontières. She was elected president during MSF's International General Assembly in June 2013.
On 26 March 2015, Saudi Arabia, leading a coalition of nine countries from West Asia and North Africa, launched an intervention in Yemen following a request from Yemeni president Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi for military support after his forces were ousted from Sanaʽa by Houthi insurgents during the Yemeni Civil War. Government forces, Houthi rebels, and other armed groups fought after the draft constitution and power-sharing arrangements collapsed, despite progress made by the UN during the political transition at that time. Violence escalated in mid-2014. Houthis and allied insurgents seized control of Sana'a in September 2014 and thereafter. In response, President Hadi asked Saudi Arabia to intervene against the Iranian-backed Houthis.
The Battle of Kunduz took place from April to October 2015 for control of the city of Kunduz, located in northern Afghanistan, with Taliban fighters attempting to seize the city and displace Afghan security forces. On 28 September 2015, the Taliban forces suddenly overran the city, with government forces retreating outside the city. The capture marked the first time since 2001 that the Taliban had taken control of a major city in Afghanistan. The Afghan government claimed to have largely recaptured Kunduz by 1 October 2015 in a counterattack, although local sources in the city disputed the claim made by government officials.
On 3 October 2015, a United States Air Force AC-130U gunship attacked the Kunduz Trauma Centre operated by Médecins Sans Frontières in the city of Kunduz, in the province of the same name in northern Afghanistan. 42 people were killed and over 30 were injured. Médecins Sans Frontières condemned the incident, calling it a deliberate breach of international humanitarian law and a war crime. It further stated that all warring parties had been notified about the hospital and its operations well in advance.
A Saudi Arabian-led military intervention in Yemen began in 2015, in an attempt to influence the outcome of the Yemeni Civil War. Saudi Arabia, spearheading a coalition of nine Arab states, began carrying out airstrikes in neighbouring Yemen and imposing an aerial and naval blockade on 26 March 2015, heralding a military intervention code-named Operation Decisive Storm. More than 130 health facilities(2019) in Yemen have been destroyed by a series of airstrikes conducted by the Saudi Arabian-led coalition since March 2015. Many of these have been public health hospitals staffed or supported by Doctors Without Borders (MSF). Critics of the assaults say the airstrikes are war crimes in violation of the protections of health care facilities afforded by the internationally recognized rules of war and have called for independent investigations.
The Kunduz Trauma Centre was a hospital operated by Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) in Kunduz, Afghanistan from 29 August 2011 until 3 October 2015 when it was destroyed in an airstrike by a United States Air Force AC-130U gunship.
Human rights violations, committed by all warring parties, have been widespread throughout the Yemeni civil war. This includes the two main groups involved in the ongoing conflict: forces loyal to the current Yemeni president, Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi, and Houthis and other forces supporting Ali Abdullah Saleh, the former Yemeni president. Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant have also carried out attacks in Yemen. The Saudi-led coalition, backed by the United States and other nations, has also been accused of violating human rights and breaking international law, especially in regards to airstrikes that repeatedly hit civilian targets.
The Aleppo bombings were intense bombardments on both rebel and government-held areas in the city of Aleppo, Syria starting in late April 2016. Some rebel shelling also hit a Kurdish-held part of the city. The bombings decreased in intensity after 55 days when a temporary truce was established. However, the bombings continued through July.
The Sanaa funeral airstrike took place on the afternoon of 8 October 2016 when 155 people were killed and at least 525 more wounded when two airstrikes, about three to eight minutes apart, hit the packed Al Kubra hall in Sanaa, Yemen during a funeral. The attack was the deadliest single bombing in the then-two year long Yemeni civil war. The funeral was being held for the father of former interior minister Jalal al-Rowaishan. Sanaa mayor Abdel Qader Hilal was reportedly among those killed. The Saudi-led coalition initially denied responsibility but then took responsibility and put the blame on information given by the Yemeni government.
The Battle of Boz Qandahari occurred on 3 November 2016, in the village of Boz Qandahari, on the western outskirts of the Afghan city of Kunduz, between Afghan National Army Commandos alongside United States Army Special Forces against Taliban insurgents.
On 17 January 2017, a Nigerian Air Force jet mistakenly bombed an internally displaced persons camp near the Cameroonian border in Rann, Borno State. They had believed it was a Boko Haram encampment. The bombing left at least 115 people dead, including six Red Cross aid workers, and left more than 100 injured.
War crimes in Afghanistan covers the period of conflict from 1979 to the present. Starting with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, 40 years of civil war in various forms has wracked Afghanistan. War crimes have been committed by all sides.
Leslie Shanks is a Canadian medical doctor who served as the president of Médecins Sans Frontières Canada, the medical director of MSF Netherlands, and who led humanitarian responses in Yugoslavia, Zaire and Sudan.
On 9 March 2022, the Russian Air Force bombed Maternity Hospital No 3, a hospital complex functioning both as a children's hospital and maternity ward in Mariupol, Ukraine, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine, killing at least four people and injuring at least sixteen, and leading to at least one stillbirth.
The following is a timeline of the Yemeni humanitarian crisis, ongoing since the mid-2010s.
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