What Takes Place in “Safe Spaces” During Armed Wars

When Russia attacked Cheriniv on March 3, 2022, a school was destroyed, killing over ten students. Following years of bombardment that transformed the school into a refuge, Inna Levchenko, a 30-year teacher there, wrote the word “children” in large letters on the school’s wall in the hopes that it would be saved. Still, the bomb went off.

“Why do schools exist? In an interview with AP, she said, “It is painful to realize how many friends of mine died. I cannot comprehend their motivation.” and the number of damaged kids who were left alone without parents. They will carry their tales to the next generation and remember it for the rest of their lives.

That happened in 2022. Schools and hospitals were among the military targets in 2020, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, during the country’s continuing civil conflict. The Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations (UOSSM) said that airstrikes and ground assaults affected 10 schools, including two nurseries, and the Idlib Central Hospital in Idlib, which turned out to be the worst target that year.

It happened in 2020. The World Health Organization reports that as of 2023, 27 out of 35 hospitals have been rendered inoperable due to Israel’s prolonged assault on Gaza. Israeli airstrikes have damaged over 250 schools and attacked over 120 health institutions. There have been more than 4,000 child deaths. One of the main targets of Israel’s ground operations in northern Gaza has been the biggest hospital in Gaza, Al-Shifa Hospital, which has been dubbed “a death zone” by humanitarian organizations.

There is significantly more devastation and loss when schools and hospitals are turned into military targets during an ongoing conflict. It’s the absence of a secure environment during a dispute. These safe places are granted legal protection during armed conflicts, yet as a result of people converging there in search of safety, they end up being important military targets. The Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition recorded more than 1,203 violent acts against medical institutions, staff, patients, and transporters in 20 different countries in 2019.

Under international humanitarian law (IHL), schools and hospitals are safeguarded during times of armed conflict. A cornerstone of international humanitarian law has been the idea that the “wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for,” as stated in the Geneva Convention of 1864. This concept provides broad protection for all ill and injured people, including civilians and wounded fighters who are regarded as hors of combat. Any infringement of this is a war crime.

The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC) asserts that IHL requires warring parties to refrain from attacking students, teachers, and their schools, even though there is no explicit and exclusive provision in the Additional Protocols, the Geneva Conventions of 1949, or customary international law dealing with the protection of schools. The IHL standards for protecting educational institutions serve as the foundation for the Safe Schools standards, which were introduced in Oslo in May 2015.

Attacks on schools and hospitals during armed conflicts, however, are tolerated notwithstanding this legal framework.

Russia has bombarded almost 1,000 schools as of May 2022, damaging 95 of them. Similar to School No. 21 in Chernihiv, a school in the eastern hamlet of Bilohorivka was being utilized as a bunker until it was destroyed by a bomb on May 7. Up to sixty persons were thought to be dead.

According to UN statistics, in late April and early June 2019, the Syrian government, together with Russian air attacks and rocket fire on the Idlib area, targeted 24 health facilities and 35 schools in Syria. The bombs destroyed schools, child care facilities, hospitals, improvised clinics, and refugee camps. The International Rescue Committee (IRC) and its Syrian partner organizations released a new report in 2021, “A Decade of Destruction: Attacks on Health Care in Syria,” which highlighted how the 10-year war strategy had transformed hospitals from safe havens into no-go zones where Syrian civilians now fear for their lives. This was in response to the country’s tenth anniversary of civil war.

According to the study, 12 million Syrians were in need of medical aid; almost one-third of them need normal reproductive, maternity, neonatal, and child health treatments. Additionally, 59% of residents in northwest Syria had been directly touched by an assault on healthcare facilities.

Similarly, the UN charged the Saudi-led coalition of having “complete disregard for human life” in a 2022 report that detailed how 2,900 schools were destroyed, damaged, or left unoccupied during the Yemeni Civil War.

In the years following World War II, a number of nations have experienced varying degrees of inhumane consequences from armed conflicts. Outlook examines what happens to these safe havens while emphasizing the continued need for increased civil society involvement and public awareness to encourage inquiries into IHL violations.