Surgeon: Syrians Shoot Pregnant Women for Fun; Several Women Shot by Snipers Have Lost Babies

Syrian snipers are now targeting pregnant women as "a game," a British surgeon says after he returned home from the conflict zone, the News (Australian) website reports today (October 20, 2013).

David Nott -- who spent five weeks volunteering as a surgeon at a Syrian hospital -- said the gunshot wounds he had treated also indicated that bored snipers were targeting particular parts of women's bodies in a bid to entertain themselves.

"One day it would be shots in the groin. The next, it would only be the left chest," Nott said. On another day, two consecutive gunshot patients were heavily pregnant women shot through the uterus  and both lost their babies. "From the first patients that came in in the morning, you could almost tell what you would see for the rest of the day. It was a game."

Nott -- a prominent surgeon who counts former British prime minister Tony Blair as an ex-patient -- said he had treated more than half a dozen shot pregnant women on one day in the Syrian city, which he did not identify for security reasons.