The Al-Quds hospital in Aleppo city, destroyed by Russia and Assad regime airstrikes in spring 2016

The appointment of the Assad regime to the World Health Organization’s executive board has been met with protests inside and outside Syria.

Medical workers in opposition-held Idlib Province challenged the three-year appointment, which was made with no debate.

Protesters outside the main health department in Idlib city carried the banner, “We reject the idea that our killer and he who destroyed our hospitals be represented on the executive board.”

Rifaat Farhat, a senior health official, said the appointment “contradicts all international and humanitarian laws”. The White Helmets civil defense issued a statement:

“Appointing A Pyromaniac to Be the Town Fire Chief”

The Assad regime and its Russian ally have bombed medical facilities throughout Syria’s 122-month conflict, killing almost 1,000 medical professionals and imprisoning almost 3,500.

During the Russian-regime siege of east Aleppo city in 2016, almost every hospital and clinic was bombed at least once. More than half of the facilities in opposition-held northwest Syria were destroyed or damaged during an offensive between April 2019 and March 2020, and there have been occasional strikes since then despite a ceasefire.

See also Russia Unwittingly Verifies Its Airstrikes on A Syrian Hospital

Russia and the Assad regime have also blocked medical aid to people in opposition areas, and regime officials, including Bashar al-Assad’s wife Asma, have been accused of diverting assistance — including from the WHO — to profit themselves.

See also UN Agencies Have Surrendered to Assad Regime — and Syrians Are Paying The Price

Medics, activists, and residents say the regime has understated the toll of the Coronavirus pandemic. The Health Ministry has only acknowledged 1,763 deaths and less than 25,000 cases.

Hillel Neuer, executive director of UN Watch, said of the World Health Organization appointment:

Syria’s election is a travesty. It’s like appointing a pyromaniac to be the town fire chief.

Syria’s Assad regime, with the help of its allies Russia and Iran, systematically bombs hospitals and clinics, killing doctors, nurses, and others as they care for the sick and injured. Health professionals have also been arrested, disappeared, imprisoned, tortured and executed. Electing this murderous regime to govern the world’s top health body is an insult to Assad’s millions of victims, and sends a terrible message.

Neuer called on UN chief Antonio Guterres and WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus to denounce Syria’s election.