Paper details

Paper authors	Alejandro Pozo Marin
In panel on	Displacement and respect for IHL: Introducing a costs and benefits approach
Paper presenter(s) will be presenting	In-Person / Online

Abstract

Governments and military forces have expressly blocked or restricted access of humanitarian workers to certain areas. Or have publicly declared entire inhabited areas as hostile, de facto jeopardizing humanitarian assistance. Examples have proliferated in the last few years, as experienced by MSF. The governments of Mali or Niger have banned access of humanitarian workers to certain areas where designated terrorist groups or alike operate. In Nigeria or Iraq, civilians in need have been screened as potential supporters of Boko Haram and Islamic State. In Afghanistan, the US forces declared that “only Taliban remain in the city” and that “everything is a threat” before they bombed the MSF hospital in Kunduz. In Syria, the presence of combatants has been used as alibi for destroying wide and densely inhabited areas. And in Yemen, the military coalition led by Saudi Arabia even declared an entire governorate as military target. This paper will examine the mentioned case studies and extract conclusions of the humanitarian consequences of not only “draining the water” but also preventing “the fish” (population) from accessing to basic humanitarian assistance.

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