Terrorist Attacks against Hospitals: World-Wide Trends and Attack Types

Analysts have warned on multiple occasions that hospitals are potential soft targets for terrorist attacks. Such attacks will have far-reaching consequences, including decreased accessibility, possible casualties, and fear among people. The extent, incidence, and characteristics of terrorist attacks against hospitals are unknown. Therefore, the objective of this study was to identify and to characterize terrorist attacks against hospitals reported to the Global Terrorism Database (GTD) over a 50-year period.

The GTD was used to search for all terrorist attacks against hospitals from 1970-2019. Analyses were performed on temporal factors, location, attack and weapon type, and number of casualties or hostages. Chi-square tests were performed to evaluate trends over time and differences in attack types per world region.

In total, 454 terrorist attacks against hospitals were identified in 61 different countries. Of these, 78 attacks targeted a specific person within the hospital, about one-half (52.6%) involved medical personnel. There was an increasing trend in yearly number of attacks from 2008 onwards, with a peak in 2014 (n = 41) and 2015 (n = 41). With 179 incidents, the "Middle East & North Africa" was the most heavily hit region of the world, followed by "South Asia" with 125 attacks. Bombings and explosions were the most common attack type (n = 270), followed by 77 armed assaults. Overall, there were 2,746 people injured and 1,631 fatalities. In three incidents, hospitals were identified as secondary targets (deliberate follow-up attack on a hospital after a primary incident elsewhere).

This analysis of the GTD identified 454 terrorist attacks against hospitals over a 50-year period. It demonstrates that the threat is real, especially in recent years and in world regions where terrorism is prevalent. The findings of this study may help to create or further improve contingency plans for a scenario wherein the hospital becomes a target of terrorism.