YAOUNDE: These days, the word on the street in war-torn Syria is that hospitals are best avoided - even if you're injured.
"Sometimes we hear that people feel the home is safer than the hospital," said Mohamed Elamein, an information officer at the World Health Organization (WHO) in Gaziantep, Turkey, close to the Syrian border.
Communities often oppose plans to build a clinic in their town or village fearing it will be targeted, he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation by telephone.
Keeping a standardised track of attacks on health facilities and workers has been a major challenge in conflict zones.
But a new digital instant messaging tool that relies on smartphone application WhatsApp has been developed by the WHO and its partners to detect, verify and log the devastating consequences of such attacks.
It is hoped the WhatsApp-based tool will provide vital evidence for the international community, which in the future could be used to hold perpetrators to account.
Syria has been named the most dangerous place on earth for healthcare providers by a Lancet Commission on Syria report, published in March, which revealed that more than 800 medical workers had been killed since 2011.
Nearly half of hospitals in non-government controlled areas were attacked and a third of services hit more than once between November 2015 and December 2016, according to a separate study published by Elamein and others.
The new tool piloted in Gaziantep by health organisations working in Syria involves a WhatsApp group of nearly 300 trusted contacts on the ground.
After the initial alert of an attack, further details are logged and cross-referenced with a range of sources in a central database.
'WHO' YOU GONNA CALL?
Mobile messaging is the fastest-growing digital communication phenomenon ever, according to a report compiled this year by the International Committee of the Red Cross.
From the Syrian hospital alert system to refugees who share information about safety at sea, digital messaging services like WhatsApp, owned by Mark Zuckerberg's Facebook Inc, are becoming indispensable in fast-unfolding humanitarian crises.
Their potential is growing every day, experts say, with 3.6 billion people globally expected to use messaging apps by 2018.
In Syria, the WhatsApp tool identified 402 attacks against health facilities and medical workers between November 2015 and December 2016. It is also designed to report attacks on ambulances and patients.
The tool is already being deployed in Jordan and Pakistan, and the WHO plans to roll it out in Iraq and Yemen. The U.N. agency is also considering its use in other troubled hotspots, including in Africa.
AFRICAN APPS
While smartphones are less widespread in Africa, the number of users almost doubled between 2014 and 2016, reaching 226 million.
In Nigeria, South Africa and Tanzania, up to 90 percent of smartphone owners regularly use at least one messaging service, such as WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger, according to a study issued last month by GSMA Mobile Economy.
During the 2014 Ebola epidemic in West Africa, 25,000 people subscribed to the BBC's first "Lifeline" humanitarian service using WhatsApp. It disseminated public information via audio, image and text message alerts to combat the disease's spread.
In Somalia, a country grappling with drought and attacks by the al Shabaab militant group, messaging apps also play a critical role for the diaspora, said Amor Almagro, a spokeswoman for the World Food Programme.
"It's one of the ways by which they stay in contact with their families in Somalia, get news from home and arrange for money transfers through the informal networks," she said.
FANNING THE FLAMES
But instant messaging is far from a panacea in crisis zones, and some experts say it can also be used to fuel violence.
In Central African Republic, diamond smuggling gangs are plundering the country's resources and funding conflict by making illegal sales via WhatsApp and Facebook, said a recent report by NGO Global Witness.
Connectivity disruptions are another hurdle.
Earlier last month, Somalia plunged into an internet blackout lasting more than three weeks, after a cargo ship damaged an underwater cable.
Other countries simply pull the plug. In 2016, 11 African governments suspended internet connections during elections or protests.
A 2016 paper by Adebayo Fayoyin of the United Nations Population Fund warned of a "new media utopianism", adding "technology is a tool of development, not an end in itself".
Staying alive: WhatsApp finds new uses in conflict zones
Staying alive: WhatsApp finds new uses in conflict zones
Israel attacks southern Lebanon, Bekaa Valley
- Lebanon insists on return of residents to border villages as a prerequisite for discussing any economic zone
BEIRUT: Two people, including a Hezbollah member, were killed, and more than five others injured on Sunday in Israeli airstrikes carried out without warning on towns in southern Lebanon and the northern Bekaa Valley.
The attacks came while the Mechanism Committee, monitoring the implementation of the ceasefire agreement between Lebanon and Israel, is experiencing “temporary paralysis.”
The date of its next meeting has yet to be confirmed, following the postponement of a session scheduled for Jan. 14 without a clear explanation.
Israeli airstrikes targeted the towns of Bir Al-Salasel, Khirbet Selm, Kfar Dunin, Barish, and Bazouriye, as well as the vicinity of the Nabi Sheet and Janta towns in the northern Bekaa.
The Lebanese Ministry of Health confirmed the fatality and injuries, while an Israeli military spokesperson said that the army attacked Hezbollah members working at a site used for producing weapons.
The strikes targeted a building where Hezbollah members were operating in the Bir Al-Salasel area in southern Lebanon. The building was being used to produce weapons, the spokesman said.
The Israeli army claimed that its airstrikes on the northern Bekaa targeted “Hezbollah military infrastructure,” adding that the “Hezbollah members’ activity at the targeted sites constitutes a violation of the agreements between Israel and Lebanon and poses a threat to Israel.”
The Mechanism Committee, headed by US Gen. Joseph Clearfield and tasked with monitoring the implementation of the cessation-of-hostilities agreement between Israel and Lebanon, is expected to resume its meetings on Feb. 25.
The committee leadership has not officially confirmed the date, which remains under discussion among its members.
An official Lebanese source told Arab News: “The failure of the Mechanism Committee to convene on Jan. 14, following two meetings that were held on Dec. 3 and 19 in Ras Al-Naqoura, indicates the existence of a crisis.”
The source said that “during the two previous meetings, Lebanon insisted on its two demands for the return of residents to border villages from which they were displaced and where their homes were destroyed, as well as the reconstruction of these villages. These two clauses constitute the foundation upon which negotiations must be built.”
The same source, who is involved in the Mechanism Committee’s meetings, said that “Lebanon’s only gateway for addressing the Israeli envoy’s proposition regarding the establishment of a border economic zone similar to a buffer zone is that the border villages must be inhabited by their residents from the Lebanese perspective. This condition cannot be overlooked under any circumstances.”
The source said that “this was discussed with the US side, in particular, and the statement issued by the US on Dec. 19 regarding the negotiations and the progress made by the Lebanese army south of the Litani River presented acceptable evidence that Lebanon is now at the heart of the negotiations.”
The source added: “Lebanon called on the Mechanism Committee to issue a statement endorsing the Lebanese army’s success in extending its control south of the Litani River, including acknowledgment from the Israeli side.
“However, through the office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel only issued a statement referring to positives and negatives."
Last week, Lebanese Finance Minister Yassine Jaber confirmed to Arab News, in a special interview from Davos on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum, that “the proposal to transform the Lebanese border area into an economic zone was immediately rejected.”
The official Lebanese source attributed the reasons for the postponement of the latest Mechanism meeting to “a structural flaw within the committee, and to a crisis affecting the American delegation related to regional and international developments, in addition to an American-Israeli desire to exclude the French representative.”
The official source spoke of two dilemmas: “There is an Israeli enemy persisting in its violations of the agreement and in its attacks on Lebanon.
“On the other hand, the Israeli side submits evidence to the Mechanism Committee, including documents, photos, and videos, regarding Hezbollah’s restoration of its capabilities, at a time when its Secretary-General, Sheikh Naim Qassem, threatens civil war if Hezbollah’s weapons north of the Litani River are touched.”
The source added: “For its part, the Lebanese Army presents evidence and documentation of what it has accomplished south of the Litani. This means that the Lebanese Army is achieving what it is capable of achieving with flesh and blood. It is aware of the existence of remaining Hezbollah weapons depots and is pursuing them.”
The official source fears “a lack of progress in negotiations in light of all these documents, high-pitched statements, and the American complaint about the slow pace of negotiations.”
He added: “The positions of Hezbollah officials do not help Lebanon’s stance within the Mechanism Committee, particularly with regard to capacity building.”
The source said that “the adherence of the Hezbollah–Amal Movement duo to the Mechanism Committee does not mean their approval of any progress in negotiations.
“When Lebanon proposes expanding the Lebanese delegation to include, for example, a former minister, this constitutes horizontal expansion rather than the vertical expansion that would serve the negotiation process, which should involve specialized experts and technicians. Consequently, any collapse of the ‘Mechanism’ meetings would mean that Lebanon would be facing a very difficult moment.
“It appears that the history of Lebanese–Israeli negotiations is passing through its most dangerous phase today. The world is no longer negotiating with Lebanon solely over its rights, but over its ability to prevent war.”
The official source also stressed that the “Mechanism” constituted a fundamental point of intersection among the participating states despite the difficulties affecting its work.
He said: “The suspension of the committee’s work could be reflected in the issue of the exclusivity of weapons north of the Litani, as its absence would mean leaving matters without controls, pushing Lebanon into an even worse phase.”
The official source said that “raising the level of representation of the Lebanese delegation is not currently on the table, but it is an inevitable end that Lebanon may reach according to the logic of events.”
Lebanon is counting on the anticipated visit of Army Commander Gen. Rodolphe Haykal to Washington early next month, and on the Paris conference scheduled for March 5, to secure further support for the plan to confine weapons north of the Litani River.
