The IHL protection for medical units and transports is an old one. The specific protection for medical units and transports under IHL is a subsidiary form of protection afforded to ensure that the wounded and the sick receive medical care. This includes means of transportation by land, water or air, such as ambulances, hospital ships and medical aircraft.
The term ‘ medical transports’ refers to any means of transportation – military or civilian, permanent or temporary – assigned exclusively to medical transportation under the control of a competent authority of a party to the conflict. The term includes, for example, hospitals and other similar units, blood transfusion centres, preventive medicine centres and institutes, medical depots and the medical and pharmaceutical stores of such units.
The term ‘ medical units’ refers to establishments and other units – military or civilian, fixed or mobile, permanent or temporary – organized for medical purposes. Some objects are also accorded specific protection under IHL, either because of their particular importance for the protection of victims of armed conflicts, the civilian population or mankind in general or because of their particular vulnerability to destruction and damage in times of armed conflict. Civilian objects are protected from attack under general provisions of IHL.
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