Protesters slam choice of Syria for board of UN health body

Dozens of medical workers in rebel-held northwest Syria have protested a decision to grant President Bashar Assad’s government a seat on the executive board of the World Health Organization

BEIRUT -- Dozens of medical workers in rebel-held northwest Syria on Monday protested a decision to grant President Bashar Assad's government a seat on the executive board of the World Health Organization. They said Assad is responsible for bombing hospitals and clinics across the war-ravaged country. The decision to give Syria a seat came a decade into the country’s devastating civil war that has left untold numbers of civilians — including many health care workers — dead and injured. The selection of Syria at a little-noticed session Saturday of the WHO’s annual assembly — which brings together all member states of the U.N. health agency — has evoked outrage in opposition-held Idlib province. Rifaat Farhat, a senior health official in Idlib, said the move “contradicts all international and humanitarian laws.”