A/HRC/30/48 Muslim as IDPs have fled there, seeking safety. Shelling by armed groups in Bani Zeid, in the Al-Sulimaniyah neighbourhood of Aleppo city, has resulted in casualties among the Christian residents of this neighbourhood. While Government checkpoints and artillery stations exist in these neighbourhoods, there has been no evident attempt to direct attacks towards military objectives on the part of the armed groups. 138. Anti-Government armed groups have besieged Nubul and Zahra (Aleppo) and Foua’a and Kafria (Idlib) partly based on the perception that these predominantly Shia and Alawite villages support the Government. However, the sieges are also a result of the fact that Popular Committees in both areas are shelling nearby armed group-controlled villages. 139. Such situations underline the failure of all parties to take all feasible precautions to protect civilians, and the lack of options available to civilians caught between warring parties. I. Medical personnel 140. Belligerents have subjected medical personnel to attacks, often as part of broader attacks on health-care facilities and infrastructure. 141. The Government’s continued use of indiscriminate aerial bombardment has destroyed and damaged hospitals, field hospitals, clinics, medical equipment, drug warehouses and generators, and caused the temporary or permanent closure of health-care facilities. In March, Government helicopters targeted a field hospital in Hama governorate with a barrel bomb, resulting in the killing of two paramedics. 142. Helicopters also targeted a field hospital in eastern parts of Aleppo city during March and April. Essential medical equipment was destroyed in the attack and led to the eventual closure of one hospital which provided medical services to hundreds of patients monthly. A primary health clinic was damaged by a barrel bomb in March. Medical and forensic personnel were wounded, and a clearly marked ambulance destroyed, in another barrel bomb attack targeting the entrance of a morgue in May. 143. In May, an aerial bomb aimed at an emergency coordination centre in Aleppo destroyed several ambulances. This attack on critical medical infrastructure prevented medical staff from coordinating life-saving services and transporting wounded persons to hospitals. 144. Hospitals and medical personnel in Government-controlled areas have been subjected to targeted attacks by anti-Government armed groups and Jabhat Al-Nusra. In January, a car bomb detonated near a field hospital in Dara’a city, destroying the drug storehouse of the hospital. 145. A suicide bomber from Tajamu Nusrat Al-Mathloum, an armed group active in the Latakia countryside, exploded himself in a public hospital in Latakia governorate in February, killing a nurse and a member of the administrative staff. A private hospital in Damascus city was subject to a mortar attack in February, launched by Jaysh Al-Islam from eastern Damascus. 146. In June during the attack on Kobane, ISIS fighters held civilians inside a Médecins Sans Frontières-supported field hospital, apparently using them as human shields to slow the counter-attack of the YPG and allowing ISIS snipers to continue firing on nearby areas from the roof of the building. The hospital was partly destroyed in subsequent clashes. 147. In regions under ISIS control, medical personnel work under regulations and conditions that substantially obstruct their profession and service. Doctors have been threatened and in some cases forced to stop working in public hospitals or private clinics. 18