A/HRC/25/65
support of demonstrators and ill treated. Upon release, the Military Services Administration
discharged them from duty.
23.
Intelligence and law enforcement agencies have forcibly disappeared medical
personnel providing treatment to perceived opposition supporters. From June 2011 until
early 2012, Government security services repeatedly raided Bab Sbaa National Hospital in
Homs, arresting doctors and nurses. One nurse explained that “at one point there were no
more doctors left in the hospital.” During 2012, Government forces conducted a wave of
arrests and extra-judicial executions of medical personnel working at Aleppo’s opposition
affiliated Al Zarzou Hospital. In June 2012, Air Force Intelligence arrested three medical
professionals at the hospital. Their burned bodies were found three days later. In July 2012,
Dr. Nur Maktabi, a senior doctor at Al Zarzou Hospital went missing. In December 2012,
he was found dead. A surgical assistant at Al Zarzou Hospital disappeared in October 2012.
In mid-December 2012, the hospital’s anaesthetist disappeared at a Government-controlled
checkpoint on his way home from Aleppo.
24.
In early 2012, a doctor was arrested by soldiers of the 6th Division while treating
patients at a state hospital in Idlib. In February 2012, Government forces arrested a doctor
who treated FSA soldiers at Meydani Hospital in Latakia. On 28 June 2012, police in
Damascus arrested, detained and subjected a nurse to psychological torture while
interrogating her about patients she had treated.
25.
Persons who received treatment in field hospitals often faced arrest and interrogation
as to the names and locations of the hospitals and doctors who provided them with medical
care. This has led to the arrest of doctors, as recorded in Dara’a in April and July 2011. In
2012 and 2013, doctors operating in field hospitals in Homs were allegedly declared
wanted persons by Government security forces for providing support to the opposition.
After a Government forces ground operation on Al Haffe, Latakia in June 2012, proGovernment militia fighters killed a doctor working at the field hospital operating in a
mosque in Al Zankoufa village.
26.
Persons delivering medical supplies have also been targeted. In March 2012,
Government security forces reportedly listed a pharmacist who established first aid clinics
in Idlib as a wanted terrorist and member of the armed opposition. In August 2012, officers
at a Government checkpoint in Athman, Homs, stopped and searched an ambulance
delivering medical supplies. The driver of the ambulance was taken to an intelligence
service detention facility. Two weeks later, the National Hospital in Dara’a released his
body, bearing extensive injuries consistent with severe torture.
27.
Since the beginning of the conflict, at least 20 Syrian Arab Red Crescent volunteers
have been killed, in some cases by sniper fire, while aiding the wounded or delivering relief
supplies. Dozens others have been arrested and detained by the Government. On 7
September 2011, a Red Crescent ambulance evacuating wounded civilians was attacked
next to a Government checkpoint in Al Hamediyah, Homs, killing one paramedic and
injuring three others. In May 2012, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent unit in Azaz, Aleppo
discontinued frontline work having suffered consistent sniper fire while attempting to
evacuate the wounded. Also in May, the Red Crescent office in Azaz was shelled. In July
2012, a Red Crescent volunteer was killed by a sniper near Abdel Aziz mosque in Dara’a
city’s Al Mahatta neighbourhood, while carrying out humanitarian duties. On 24 August
2012, a Government sniper shot and injured a Red Crescent nurse near Al Omari mosque in
Dara’a. The sniper was located 200 metres away and would have seen his uniform and
distinctive emblem. In early September 2012, a sniper in Al Midan neighbourhood in
Aleppo city shot a medical emergency worker in full medical uniform and holding a
medical bag bearing the Red Crescent logo. In March 2013, Government forces seized a
Red Crescent ambulance in Jobar, Damascus. The ambulance personnel, all in uniform
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