Monday, June 25, 2007

Chief of Baghdad Children's Hospital Killed

Latest in Wave of Killing of Physicians; Most Iraqi Doctors Have Fled

Baghdad - Iraqi Police said that unknown gunmen killed the director of the Children's Hospital in the Mansour area of Baghdad today.

A police source told the Independent News (Voices of Iraq) that "assassins killed Dr Ahmad Shehab, director of the Central Children Hospital, in an armed attack in Al-Mansour" located west of the capital.

He pointed out that the armed men "fled to an unknown destination," saying that the security forces "opened an investigation into the incident to identify the perpetrators and the party that stands behind them."

The Iraqi Ministry of Health earlier spoke of a a sharp deterioration of the health situation due to a campaign of assassinations and death threats targeting Iraqi doctors, many of whom have fled abroad the ministry,

The ministry reports that of the 34,000 Iraqi doctors, more than half have fled the country or taken refuge in Kurdistan in northern Iraq.

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