UNHCR's ELIGIBILITY GUIDELINES FOR ASSESSING THE ...

Annex VI: Attacks on Doctors and Other Medical Personnel
The following incidents have been reported since February 2006:
• 20 January 2007: Salah Mehdi Hamza, a popular children’s doctor who had been
kidnapped on 16 January in Baghdad, was found dead, even though his family handed
over a US $40,000 ransom and a box full of jewels and gold ornaments. He had already
been kidnapped twice. The first time was for three weeks when he was forcibly taken to
Fallujah, the Sunni insurgent stronghold, to care for the wounded. 973
• 15 May 2006: Unknown gunmen assassinated Dr. Adnan Abbas Al-Hashemy after he
was leaving his private clinic in Mosul. Reportedly, two other doctors were killed the
same week in Mosul. 974
• 8 May 2006: Unidentified gunmen arrived in two private cars to the Al-Zayzafon
pharmacy in Al-Sukar District in Mosul. The men took the pharmacist Fadhel Ezalddin
Nidham and executed him in public before setting the pharmacy on fire. 975
• 9 April 2006: Several armed men gunned down Dr. Darb Mohammed Al-Mousawi,
Director of the Ear, Nose and Throat Centre of the University of Baghdad at the door of
his clinic in Baghdad’s Adhamiya neighbourhood. 976
• 12 February 2006: Halit Ali was killed after he left home to go to work at the state
hospital of Hawija near Kirkuk. 977
• 11 February 2006: Dr. Khalid Abdullah, who was working in the city hospital of
Hawija, west of Kirkuk, was shot dead by masked gunmen who had barged into the
hospital. 978
973
Patrick Cockburn, Children’s doctor among latest victims of Iraq kidnap epidemic, The Independent,
26 January 2007, http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2186519.ece.
974
UNAMI HRO, October 2006 Human Rights Report, p. 5, see above footnote 66.
975
Ibidem, June 2006 Human Rights Report, p. 6, see above footnote 27.
976
Ibidem, April 2006 Human Rights Report, p. 10, see above footnote 74.
977
Turks.US, Doctor and Contractor Killed in Kerkuk Iraq, 12 February 2006, http://www.turks.us/article~
story~20060212105931442.htm.
978
AP, Kidnapped contractor, doctor killed in Iraq, 12 February 2006, http://www.abc.net.au/news/
newsitems/200602/s1568007.htm.
191