(New York) - Ten years after United Nations Security Council Resolution 2286 was adopted to protect health care in armed conflict, attacks on hospitals and healthcare workers continue, Human Rights Watch said today.
Resolution 2286, unanimously adopted on May 3, 2016, obligates countries to "prevent and address" attacks on health. A decade later, a new report by the Safeguarding Health in Conflict Coalition (SHCC), an international group of nongovernmental and academic organizations, including Human Rights Watch, found that attacks on health facilities and medical workers continued to occur at an alarming rate. Governments should protect the rule of law by meaningfully preventing unlawful attacks and punishing those responsible.
"Resolution 2286 sets out clear obligations to protect healthcare workers and facilities in armed conflict and to adhere to international law," said Julia Bleckner, senior researcher in the Global Health Initiative at Human Rights Watch. "A decade later, member states have not only failed to meet these obligations but leaders are apparently comfortable flouting laws and norms. Accountability requires more than resolutions. It requires consequences."
Human Rights Watch has produced a web page compiling its work on attacks on health spanning the 10 years since the adoption of the resolution.
The SHCC documented 2,546 reported incidents of "attacks on health" in 33 countries in 2025. Of these, 936 involved killing, kidnapping, or arresting health or aid workers, while 790 affected healthcare infrastructure, including hospitals and clinics. The coalition noted that "across all conflict settings, attacks on health care in 2025 caused interconnected system-wide impacts." The coalition report also found that the majority of attacks were carried out by state forces. On May 7, 2026, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres released a report with similar findings, highlighting that "the significant increase in violence against health care since 2016 has been driven by State actors."
On May 19, representatives of UN member states and civil society groups gathered in New York to acknowledge the significant gaps in accountability and renew their commitment to concrete actions to reduce attacks on health care.
All governments should take urgent actions to comply with international law and the requirements laid out in Resolution 2286, Human Rights Watch said. This includes improving data collection on attacks on and threats to health care, integrating practical measures to ensure respect for international law into military doctrine and training, expanding domestic law to incorporate legal obligations under international human rights and humanitarian law, and restricting the sale and export of arms to known violators. Governments should regularly report on actions taken to comply with these and other obligations under the law, Human Rights Watch said.
Human Rights Watch has documented unlawful attacks on health care in conflict for more than 25 years, demonstrating their acute harm as well as the reverberating impact on human rights long after the conflict has ended.
International law grants special protected status for hospitals and other medical facilities, healthcare personnel, and medical transportation units, such as ambulances. Health facilities, personnel, and transport units lose their protected status only if they are used outside of their humanitarian function to commit acts harmful to the opposing party. These attacks may still be unlawful if indiscriminate or disproportionate. The law also prohibits attacks on civilian infrastructure critical to the survival of the population, such as electricity and water installations.
Human Rights Watch has also reported that attacks of this nature can violate international human rights law, in particular the right to health. Under the law, which applies during times of conflict alongside humanitarian law, states must comply with certain core obligations that represent the minimum essential levels of these rights, noncompliance with which cannot be justified even in times of conflict. Core minimum levels of the right to health include nondiscriminatory access to health facilities, goods, and services; food, shelter, and housing; sanitation and safe, potable water; and essential medicines.
"Even in war, the right to health endures," Bleckner said. "The evidence of attacks on health care in conflict is overwhelming. The only question is whether countries will act or remain silent and allow such attacks to continue with impunity."
Source: Human Rights Watch
