<P> According to the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry medical personnel have been targeted during the civil war . According to Physicians for Human Rights, the Syrian government "responded to popular protests with months of sustained and extreme violence and intimidation, and an all - out assault on the country's medical system ." The government has denied "wounded civilians impartial medical treatment", invaded, attacked and misused hospitals, attacked and impeded medical transport, and detained and tortured doctors for treating wounded civilians, according to the group . In government - run hospitals pro-regime staff "routinely performed amputations for minor injuries, as a form of punishment", wounded protesters were taken from hospital wards by security and intelligence agents . Ambulances with wounded protesters were commandeered by security agents to go to facilities for interrogation and sometimes torture . In response medical personnel created secret medical units to treat injured . </P> <P> The New Yorker magazine cites the group stating that in the five years since the war started "the Syrian government has assassinated, bombed, and tortured to death almost seven hundred medical personnel ." (Armed opposition groups, including ISIL, are estimated to have killed 27 personnel .) </P> <P> Physician Annie Sparrows believes an explanation for the killing is that the Syrian government has come to view doctors as dangerous, their ability to heal rebel fighters and civilians in rebel - held areas a "weapon" against the government . Over the 2.5 years, doctors, nurses, dentists, and pharmacists who provide medical care to civilians in contested areas have been arrested and detained; paramedics have been tortured and used as human shields, ambulances have been targeted by snipers and missiles; medical facilities have been destroyed; the pharmaceutical industry devastated . In 2011, there were more than 30,000 doctors in Syria . Now, more than 16,000 doctors have fled, and many of those left are in hiding . More than ninety have been assassinated for doing their jobs and at least 36 paramedics, in uniform on authorized missions, have been killed by Syrian military snipers or shot dead at checkpoints . </P> <P> As of August 2016, more than 200 medical facilities have been attacked by the regime and its allies since the start of the war, and according to The Economist, "Experts reckon that no previous war has witnessed such widespread, systematic targeting of hospitals and medical workers ." </P>

What are the human rights violations in syria