Wars are being fought as in 'barbarian times', warns MSF chief
Source: The Guardian
Wars are being fought as in 'barbarian times', warns MSF chief
Charity head speaks out after hospital attacks and says focus on terrorism
is threatening the rules which govern warfare
Kareem Shaheen in Beirut
Monday 7 March 2016 11.58 GMT
Attacks against civilians in war zones across the world have grown more indiscriminate due to a myopic focus by the major global powers on fighting terrorism, the head of the international charity Médecins Sans Frontières has said.
In an interview with the Guardian, Joanne Liu, the Canadian physician and president of MSF, issued a broad indictment of how modern warfare is conducted, declaring that world powers have failed in their duty to uphold the rules of conflict, threatening a return to barbarian times.
We are in a completely different way of rules of engagement in conflicts, she said during a visit to Beirut. I still believe that what the Geneva convention and international humanitarian law brought to conflict was to mitigate war on civilians, and by not respecting that we are going backwards a hundred years. Its barbarian times. I dont think in the 21st century we should allow ourselves to drift there.
If the rules are to be changed, we want to be told, she said.
The past few months have seen an increased ferocity of attacks on health facilities, especially in the Middle East.
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Read more:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/mar/07/wars-are-being-fought-as-in-barbarian-times-warns-medecins-san-frontieres-chief