(AhlulBayt News Agency) - “As the battle for Mosul unfolds, we are finding that ISIS is regularly occupying medical facilities and placing civilians and staff there at risk of incoming attacks,” Lama Fakih, the deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch said.
“Shamefully, ISIS terrorists have also taken to advertising their abuses on the streets, as they did with the parading of soldiers’ bodies,” Fakih added.
ISIS has been known to bury themselves in and around dense civilian populations as a tactic during the months-long battle between Iraqi forces and the terrorist group. By doing so, the terrorists are able to utilize Mosul’s civilian population as a human shield from airstrikes, and advancing Iraqi troops on the ground.
An ISIS presence in medical facilities is not new, a staff member at al-Salam Hospital in Eastern Mosul told HRW that when the group first took control of the city in 2014, a consistent presence of around ten ISIS terrorists occupied the hospital at all times.
By occupying hospitals, ISIS terrorists appear to attempt to make themselves less of a target due to the presence of hospital staff and civilians, and the need to keep such infrastructure intact.
Under the laws of war, hospitals and other medical facilities receive special protection. Armed forces or groups are not allowed to occupy medical facilities, as doing so undermines their protected status and places civilians and civilian objects at risk.
The United Nations warned at the beginning of the operation that ISIS could try to take thousands of people as hostages and human shields during the Mosul offensive.
The campaign to capture Mosul started on October 17, and the offensive on the largest city under ISIS control in either Iraq or Syria, is turning into the biggest battle in Iraq's turbulent history since 2003.
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