János BESENYŐ

János BESENYŐ

Óbuda University, Hungary

besenyo [dot] janosuni-obuda [dot] hu

Colonel (ret.) János Besenyő had 31 years of experience in the Hungarian Defence Forces. In his last assignment he led the General Staff, Scientific Research Centre more than 4 years. He is an assistant professor of Óbuda University Doctoral School on Safety and Security Sciences and teaching African conflicts, European Security and Defence Policy, and conflict management. He is a lecturer in National Public Service University, Budapest (Doctoral School of Military Sciences), Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest (Doctoral School of History) and Eszterházy Károly University of Applied Sciences, Eger about African History, African conflicts, Hungarian participation in African peace operations, Western Sahara, terrorism, Christian-Muslim relations, Hungarian- African relations.

Changing Face of Terror in the XXI. Century: Terror Attacks Against African Health Facilities

Abstract

Over the last few years, terrorism has undergone changes that will lead to new types of attacks. These include attacks on health care facilities, hospitals and health care workers. Although these attacks have occurred in the past, more and more such attacks may occur based on recent events. For this reason my study analyses two hundred and sixteen terrorist attacks executed against hospitals, health care facilities, and workers in Africa between 1974 and 2019.  These attacks are important not only because of the high number of casualties, but also because they contain many substances - radioactive materials, viruses and bacteria, medicines and toxic substances - that terrorists can even use to attack other targets. For this more attention needs to be given to prevention this kind of attacks.

Keywords: Africa, terrorist attacks, hospitals, health workers, patients, ISIL, Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Al Murabitoun, Ansar Dine, suicide bombings, threat, hostage-taking, dirty bomb, cyber-attack