- The Washington Times - Wednesday, October 23, 2013

A British surgeon who’s worked in several Syrian hospitals with the charity Syria Relief claims pro-Assad snipers have recently began targeting heavily pregnant women as some sort of twisted game, CNN reported.

“After a while, we noticed that there were certain trends going on,” said Dr. David Nott, who witnessed evidence that fighters are shooting pregnant civilians in the womb, killing their unborn babies.

Dr. Nott, who counts ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair among his former patients, said that as women and children dash for supplies through the unnamed Syrian city where he was stationed, they would be peppered by snipers. Sniper wounds made up about 90 percent of his surgeries, CNN reported.

“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,” he said, the Daily Mail reported.

“We had some days, say, 10 or 15 gunshot wounds of which eight or nine of them were targeted in one particular area. So for example, one day, we received say 15, 16 gunshot wounds and of that, eight to nine were targeted in the left groin only,” Dr. Nott said in the CNN report.

“Then the following day, they were targeted in the right groin only. So it seemed to me like there was some of thing going on — a game going on — between the snipers,” he said.

Dr. Nott said other doctors told him of rumors that snipers were receiving gifts, like cigarettes, for when they “hit the correct targets,” the Daily Mail reported.

“The women were all shot through the uterus, so that must have been where they were aiming for. I can’t even begin to tell you how awful it was,” he said. “Most of the children removed were seven, eight, nine months gestation.”

“Usually, civilians are caught in the crossfire. This is the first time I’ve ever seen anything like this. This was deliberate. It was hell beyond hell,” Dr. Nott said, the Daily Mail reported.

CNN’s report featured a chilling X-ray of a fetus with a bullet lodged in its brain. The child did not survive, however, the mother did.

• Jessica Chasmar can be reached at jchasmar@washingtontimes.com.

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