Region | Iraq

Decline in violence spurs doctors' return

Once targeted by militants, Iraqi doctors are trickling back from abroad after a decline in violence, but conditions are still far from ideal.

  • Reuters
  • Published: 23:01 April 21, 2009
  • Gulf News

Baghdad: Once targeted by militants, Iraqi doctors are trickling back from abroad after a decline in violence, but conditions are still far from ideal.

Iraq is desperate to lure back medics and other professionals who fled in droves after being targeted by insurgents bent on undermining its nascent democracy.

Last year, the government decreed doctors could carry a gun to defend themselves, an option not open to other civilians.

"I'm not afraid ... there's no targeting of individuals now," neurologist Ali Marzok said, only two weeks into his new job at a Baghdad hospital after returning to Iraq from Syria.

"Iraq is so much better than when I left it." Marzok left Iraq in 2006 when the bombing of a Shiite shrine triggered a surge in sectarian slayings. While attacks are still common assassinations carried out against professionals have declined, and about 600 doctors have returned since June.

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