ERBIL, Kurdistan Region—More than 700 doctors and medical personnel have been killed in attacks on Syrian hospitals since the outbreak of civil war more than five years ago, UN investigators said on Tuesday. Presenting their report to the UN Human Rights Council, Paulo Pinheiro, chief of the UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria, noted that the attacks on medical facilities have left access to health care completely impossible in some areas. “As civilian casualties mount, the number of medical facilities and staff decreases, limiting even further access to medical care,” he said. Over 280,000 people have been killed and half the population has fled their homes in a civil conflict, now in its sixth year, that has become a multi-fronted war. And it is the civilian population that is suffering. Life expectancy in the country has dropped by 20 years because of the war. “With each attack, terrorized survivors are left more vulnerable,” Pinheiro said. “Schools, hospitals, mosques, water stations… are all being turned into rubble.” The conflict has seen multiple violations of the rules of war with the deployment of incendiary and chemical weapons, the use of human shields, and the deliberate targeting of medical centres. Recent footage, first broadcast on Russia’s state-run television, shows incendiary weapons mounted on a Russian Su-34 fighter jet. “These incendiary weapons contain a substance believed to be thermite that ignites while falling, which has led witnesses of attacks to describe them as ‘fireballs,’” reported Human Rights Watch. “Because of the flammable content, incendiary weapons cause excruciatingly painful burns and start fires that are hard to extinguish.” Russia is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons protocol which prohibits the use of such weapons in civilian areas. Human Rights Watch reported that Sergei Lavrov, Russia Minister of Foreign Affairs, in a letter to the group, “acknowledged the ‘significant humanitarian damage’ caused by incendiary weapons in Syria, which he blamed on their ‘improper use.’” The monitoring group urged Russia to stop “improper use” altogether and follow international law by not using such weapons in civilian areas. Damascus has refused to sign onto the Convention on Conventional Weapons protocol.
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