Medicine, conflict, and survival
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Nigeria, the most populous Black country in the world, though it has contributed to the welfare of other African countries, is plagued by internal conflicts with small arms. Over a million illegal small arms circulate in Nigeria in the hands of militant groups. ⋯ Quality health care is unavailable in much of the country, and small arms injuries often overstretch emergency health care. A national committee has been set up to implement the ECOWAS moratorium on small arms and light weapons, but much remains to be done.
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A method is described which translates qualitative reports about armed violence into meaningful quantitative data allowing an evidence-based approach to the causes and effects of the global health impact of armed violence on unarmed people. Analysis of 100 randomly selected news reports shows that the type of weapon used, the psychological aspect of the violence, the number of weapons in use and the victims' vulnerability independently influence the mortality of victims. Data collated by the same method could be analysed together with indicators of poverty, development and health so illuminating the relationship between such indicators and degradation of peoples' physical security through acts of armed violence. The method could also help uphold the laws of war and human rights.
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The increase in humanitarian crises due to states failing to observe the human rights of their citizens led to the establishment of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty. Whilst all agree with the need for concerted action to protect innocent civilians from human rights abuses the focus must be on prevention; the use of military force creates further problems. An analysis of failed states, such as Rwanda, shows how the actions of the international community, especially the most powerful states, contribute to conditions creating the abuse and how appropriate actions by the external players could have prevented these abuses.
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Peace through Health (PtH) is an evolving academic discipline that explores how health interventions may contribute to peace in actual and potential war zones and situations of conflict. This article is an attempt to define the scope of PtH activities, to develop a framework for groups and individuals to conceptualise their role in peace work and to develop clearly definable goals for evaluation. ⋯ In particular, the work of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War and medical war prevention work in Iraq since 1990 is discussed. It is felt that such a model might be used to classify and better direct medical peace work to areas of expertise.