Doctors from the General Hospital of Fallujah, as
well as others involved with clinics throughout the city, are reporting
that US Marines obstructed their services during the fighting that
engulfed this city in April. They also said US snipers intentionally
targeted their clinics and ambulances in the city during the siege.
"The Marines have said they didn't close the hospital,
but essentially they did," said Dr. Abdul Jabbar, an orthopedic surgeon
at the General Hospital. "They closed the bridge which connects us
to the city, closed our road, and the area in front of our hospital
was full of their soldiers and vehicles."
Major T.V. Johnson, public affairs officer for the
1st Marine Division, said the effective sealing off of the hospital
from the city was an essential part of his unit's strategy, and pointed
out that the bridge leading to it was reopened on April 17, two weeks
into the intense fighting.
"The cordon around the city was wholly necessary
for the military operations in Fallujah," Johnson said. "As soon as
it was possible from a military standpoint, the cordon was adjusted
to allow greater access to the hospital." He declined to explain what
military criteria were applied to determine the necessity of segregating
the hospital from the city.
Dr. Jabbar, who also worked inside the city at a
small clinic treating people who were unable to reach the general hospital
in April, blamed the military for shooting civilian ambulances, as
well as for shooting near his clinic. "Some days we couldn't leave,
or even go near the door because of the snipers," he said. "They were
shooting at the front door of the clinic."
...
Another doctor who was working at the General Hospital
when the fighting started in early April said that at the beginning
of the fighting, US soldiers were using their own vehicles to transport
wounded Fallujans across the bridge to the hospital. "But after the
first two days, they stopped doing this," the doctor said, preferring
only his first name, Ahmed, be used in this story.
"The Americans shot out the lights in the front
of our hospital, they prevented doctors from reaching the emergency
unit at the hospital, and we quickly began to run out of supplies and
much needed medications," Ahmed recounted. He also reported that Marines
at times kept physicians in the residence building and prohibited them
from entering the hospital to treat patients.
...
Other stories continue to emerge of US military
personnel interfering with medical treatment at small emergency clinics
inside the city during the month of April.
Dr. Rashid, another physician who preferred only
his first name be used, worked at a clinic in the Jumaria Quarter of
the city in April. He said, "The major problem we found were the American
snipers. I saw them on top of the buildings near the mayor's office."
He told of one instance when, he believed, the clinic
came under fire inadvertently by US gunmen. "One day they were attacking
the Al-Jazeera cameraman who was on a nearby building in front of the
clinic. So when they shot at him, the bullets came near us."
...
Major Johnson refused to say whether Marines had
fired on Iraqi ambulances at any time, but he did say civilian emergency
vehicles were regularly used by resistance fighters to transport armaments
and personnel. Shown photographs of ambulances torched and shot during
the fighting, Major Johnson said, "The forces we fought in Fallujah
routinely used ambulances as weapons and troop transporters. At that
point, those particular vehicles lose their protected status. This
would be the only case in which our forces would have fired upon ambulances."
No direct documentation of the use of ambulances
for military purposes by Iraqi guerillas has been offered by the US
military.
...
The Fourth Geneva Convention, which the US signed, clearly prohibits
the use of civilian emergency vehicles and facilities for transportation
or sheltering of armed fighting personnel and weapons. It also strictly
forbids attacks on emergency vehicles and facilities.
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