syria

The targeting of medical cadres by the Syrian government is a crime against humanity

The Syrian government kills and injures hundreds of people daily and those who survive from the injured are not able to go to public hospitals to be treated as they fear detention or physical liquidation. This has placed the medical cadres in a very tricky situation – to abide to the governments orders and to inform them of the patients, knowing that these patients are going to be arrested and detained and may even be tortured, or to ignore the orders and to make the health of the patients their priority, by doing so putting themselves in danger for protecting their patients.

Additionally, the Syrian network for human rights documented the execution of approx 900 civilians from a total of 42561, which is the death toll figure at the end of 2012. Those 900 were wounded civilians who entered private and public hospitals and were murdered by the security forces and thugs in front of the medical cadres, many of the corpses which were taken out of hospitals had signs of bullet shots.

This situation caused many doctors to work in field hospitals which have very basic medical equipment. They had to carry out operations on people who were shot by snipers or who were injured due to shelling, this meant that many paramedics, pharmacists and doctors were prosecuted by the Syrian governments forces, and were regarded as criminals because they aided the wounded.

The Syrian network for human rights documented the following figures up until the end of 2012; these figures are a direct evidence of the targeting of medical cadres throughout the Syrian revolution:

143 workers the medical field were killed, including:
64 doctors of various specialities
27 pharmacists
52 paramedics, 23 of them work for the Syrian Red Crescent
From the 143 workers in the medical field, we documented 5 women.

However, the main evidence of the systematic targeting of medical cadres by the Syrian governments forces is the execution of four of them in a summary execution in a field hospital. This took place when they broke into a field hospital and found doctors and paramedics treating wounded people, we have documented four cases of this incident in various areas.
The following link contains a file which includes all the details in names, pictures, videos and dates of these incidents, according to the various Syrian districts:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B9Bj18tlYYKBNFUwUkswM1pheU0/edit

Detainees:

From approx 194 thousand detainees, the Syrian network for human rights documented approx 3000 detainees from the medical cadres, including 600 doctors who were detained from various Syria districts. 13 of them were killed under brutal torture, which is another evidence of the systematic targeting of medical cadres. Additionally, there are 11 detainees from the Syrian Red Crescent who are in prison until this moment and the network received accurate testimonies which confirm that they were only arrested because they were paramedics.

Condemnation and bearing the responsibility:

We, in the Syrian network for human rights, as a National, Syrian, independent human rights organisation with an aim of defending human rights, believe that the president of Syria and commander in chief of the army and armed forces, Bashar Al Assad, holds the total responsibility for the murder of medical cadres, their systematic targeting, their torture and detention, as he is responsible for making orders of such actions. We also consider all Syrian governments’ staff directly responsible for such actions in addition to the governments who support this regime, such as the Russian, Chinese and Iranian governments and Hezbullah brigades. They all hold the total responsibility for these crimes, which are considered to be breaches of human rights in view of the Rome statute, they are also responsible for the consequences and reactions of such actions especially from the Syrian civilians and the relatives of the martyrs.

We demand the Security Council, the United Nations and its member states, doctors without borders organisation and all organisations concerned with protecting medical cadres to take action immediately to protect the Syrian civilians. The failure of these organisations to support the Syrian people and protect the civilians means that they also hold the responsibility with the Syrian regime for the crimes which are taking place, as they must abide to their legal and moral responsibilities and to accelerate the steps toward the assignment of all those involved in the massacres to the International Criminal Court