Doctors fleeing Iraq due to violence: Rights group

BAGHDAD, Iraq

The Iraqi Human Rights Commission on Friday warned that doctors continued to emigrate out of the country due to violence against them by patients' families amid the ongoing novel coronavirus pandemic.

The warning came after a hospital director in the southern Najaf province was severely beaten by family members of a coronavirus patient who died recently from the virus.

Assaulting doctors and vandalizing medical property that form the frontline in combating the coronavirus "in such an aggressive manner" is a grave violation of human rights, Fadel al-Gharrawi, a member of the rights commission, commented on the incident.

"The repeat of assaults on medical staff require that the government must implement deterrent measures to limit this phenomena," al-Gharrawi added.

He underlined that in the absence of such precautions, medical staff migrate from Iraq as "a way to protect their lives."

Recently, footage went viral on social media that showed a group of people assaulting Dr. Tareq Sheibani, the Director of al-Aml Hospital in Najaf city, for allegedly being responsible for the death of a coronavirus patient.

For its part, the Iraqi High Judiciary Court said it took legal procedures against the suspected assailants.

Assaults on doctors and medical staff are widespread in Iraq, where many have been pursued by tribes to pay compensation to the families of dead patients or face possible revenge.

So far, Iraq has reported 219,435 cases of COVID-19, including 6,740 deaths and 161,009 recoveries.

* Ahmed Asmar contributed to this report from Ankara