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A/HRC/22/59 GE.13-10627 21 B. Specifically protected persons and objects19 137. Escalating violence in densely populated urban areas has increasingly affected persons and objects specifically protected under the laws of armed conflict. 138. The deliberate targeting of medical personnel and hospitals, and the denial of medical access have been one of the most alarming features of the conflict, and continued unabated throughout the period under review. 139. Hospitals and medical personnel, journalists and cultural property have been treated as military objectives by both sides to the conflict and viewed in terms of strategic gain. 140. The satellite imagery examined showed the extensive destruction of hospitals in densely populated urban areas, as well as munitions craters, barricades and debris in areas around hospitals in Damascus, Aleppo and Homs. 1. Government forces and affiliated militia 141. During the period under review, State hospitals, field hospitals and medical units across Aleppo, Damascus, Idlib and Dayr az Zawr came under attack, often repeatedly. 142. Government forces have attacked hospitals in which wounded FSA members were receiving treatment. This pattern was observed in the attacks on Al-Huda hospital in Sbeneh in September, on Al-Saeed hospital in Al-Arfi, Dayr az Zawr between July and November and Tafas, Dara’a, in December. 143. Medical personnel came under attack. In early September, a medical emergency worker was hit by sniper fire in Aleppo while in medical uniform with the Red Crescent emblem. Around the same time in Aleppo, snipers targeted an ambulance that was evacuating wounded hors de combat FSA fighters. In Dara’a, an ambulance driver was arrested at a Government checkpoint and tortured to death. In Damascus governorate, a physician was detained, tortured and tried for having given medical care to anti- Government armed groups and civilians in opposition areas. 144. In Aleppo, Dara’a, Damascus and Hama, wounded and sick persons were refused treatment on sectarian or political grounds, or avoided seeking treatment in Government-administered hospitals owing to a well-founded fear of arrest and torture. Consistent accounts indicate that, in Dara’a and Homs, snipers positioned at checkpoints in front of hospitals impeded access to treatment. 145. Dar Al-Shifa hospital in Aleppo was repeatedly targeted during the period under review. These attacks caused death and injury to civilians present in the hospital, significantly damaged its infrastructure and substantially reduced the hospital’s ability to treat patients. Attacks on hospitals in Aleppo appear to constitute part of a campaign against civilians in anti-Government armed group-controlled areas. 146. Hospitals and medical units were deliberately targeted by Government forces to gain military advantage by depriving anti-Government armed groups and those perceived to support them of medical assistance. Government forces committed the war crime of attacking protected objects and the war crime of attacking objects or persons using the distinctive emblems of the Geneva Conventions. 19 See also annex XII