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A/HRC/24/CRP.2 8 maltreatment. Since 2011, Military Security, Military Intelligence, Air Force Intelligence, the Security Department of the Syrian Army’s 4th Division and the Republican Guard have brought detainees to separate security wards inside the hospital. Detainees, including children, have been beaten, burned with cigarettes, and subjected to torture that exploits pre-existing injuries. Many patients have been tortured to death in this facility. 37. Consistent accounts from Abdul Qadir Al Shaqfa Military Hospital in Al Waer, Homs, indicate that security officers tortured persons brought for medical treatment from April 2011 to September 2012. Doctors were ordered to keep victims alive so that they could be interrogated further. Eyewitnesses describe how patients were chained to their beds and blindfolded, provided minimal food and water and subjected to harsh treatment. VI. Conclusion 38. Violence against healthcare has significant compound effects, causing dramatic increases in mortality among the sick and wounded. The breakdown of medical services in wartime disproportionately affects vulnerable segments of the population, such as children under the age of five, nursing mothers, the disabled and elderly. In Syria, their suffering is exacerbated by the conduct of the parties to the conflict. As documented in the Commission’s previous reports, both Government forces and anti-Government armed groups have employed siege warfare, preventing the passage of humanitarian aid and basic necessities, including medicine and medical supplies. Such tactics have long-term repercussions on the ability of entire communities to treat war-related and chronic healthcare problems. 39. Syria’s healthcare system has fragmented along conflict lines. According to UNRWA, 32 of the country’s 88 public hospitals have closed. Twenty-six of those closed are in Aleppo, Damascus, Homs and Dayr az Zawr, the four governorates most affected by the conflict. The Government reported in March 2013 that 10-15% of doctors have left the country. In contested areas, the healthcare system has largely fallen apart and is being replaced by an improvised, inadequate system, constantly at risk of attack by Government forces. Hospitals that remain operational under Government control often lack impartiality. 40. Government forces have abused the vulnerable, the wounded and the sick, exploiting their need for medical aid to further military aims. By attacking medical facilities, using hospitals as bases for military action, targeting medical personnel and interfering with patients receiving treatment, Government forces have perpetrated a concerted policy of denying medical aid to those affiliated with or part of the armed opposition. The first efforts to humanise warfare focused on the protection of the sick and wounded and those providing them with care. The incidents and patterns recorded reveal that the actions of the Syrian Government from 2011 to date have been a cynical betrayal of this fundamental principle. 41. The documented incidents of anti-Government armed group attacks against hospitals are of grave concern, as they demonstrate a disregard for the specially protected status of healthcare facilities and a failure to take precautions to avoid civilian casualties and protected the sick and wounded. 42. The Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic reaffirms its recommendations (A/HRC/24/46) regarding the need to ensure the protection of civilians and compliance with international humanitarian law. The parties to the conflict must respect the special protection afforded to medical facilities and personnel. The Commission entreats the Government to fulfill its obligations under international human rights law to ensure the right to health, a right that is closely and inextricably linked to the rights to life, human dignity, non-discrimination, equality and the prohibition against torture and ill-treatment