MANAMA – Some doctors at Bahrain’s busiest hospital say they are too scared to return to work for fear of being arrested or harassed after treating wounded protesters during weeks of unrest in the Sunni-ruled kingdom.
Bahraini security forces raided Salmaniya hospital on Wednesday, the day they launched a crackdown that drove mainly Shia protesters off the streets, and removed a handful of tents that opposition activists had set up in the car park. Four doctors, who declined to be named, told Reuters that few casualties arrived at Salmaniya, a busy public hospital where treatment is heavily subsidised, on Wednesday because troops surrounded the compound and closed all but one entrance.
At least four medical workers – Ali al-Ikry, Mahmood Asghar and brothers Ghassan and Bassem Dhaif – have already been detained, doctors and opposition politicians say, after publicly criticising the government’s crackdown on protests.
