Despite popular belief to the contrary, the norm of humanitarian neutrality has always been tenuous. Elizabeth Willis’ 2008 paper provides an excellent summary of the status of the health / humanitarian neutrality norm during the Spanish Civil War:
It will be apparent that few if any participants in the aid effort were neutral, even in theory, and for some there was no question even of non-combatant status. Medical personnel were counted among the casualties. Randall Sollenberger, an American doctor who had been working at Bury Royal Infirmary near Manchester, decided to ‘pinch’ two trucks and go to help when he heard of the battle of Jerama. Because there was more scarcity of doctors than of soldiers, he was put under arrest to prevent him from going to the front, but he was killed during the Brunete offensive when his truck was bombed. The consideration that medical work might include caring for enemy soldiers was no protection; there are accounts of the Red Cross symbol being targeted, so that its use on vehicles was discontinued. Drivers and stretcher-bearers were highly vulnerable. Orwell noticed a Belfast Irishman with some training in first aid who ‘went to and fro with packets of bandages, binding up the wounded men and, of course, being shot at’. Neither were hospitals very safe places of refuge, as already indicated. When Guernica was bombed and the hospital was hit, 25 children and two nuns were killed.” (Willis 2008, 167-168)
Source:
Willis, Elizabeth A. 2008. “Medical responses to civil war and revolution in Spain, 1936–1939: international aid and local self-organization.” Medicine, Conflict and Survival 24(3): 159.
Christopher Albon is a Ph.D. candidate specializing in armed conflict, public health, human security, and health diplomacy.
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