Raqqa, April 10, 2015
Islamic State militants in Raqqa, the group’s operations center in Syria, are succumbing to the flesh-eating parasitic disease leishmaniasis.
According to the anti-IS activist group “Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently,” the disease has affected around 3,000 people in the jihadis’ territory.
Leishmaniasis causes skin lesions, which are generally easily treatable. But if left alone, the disease eats away at the patient’s flesh and can be ultimately fatal.
The jihadi militants have blocked outside medical services’ access to their territory, leaving those who live their untreated and vulnerable.
The disease is transmitted by infected sandflies, and generally prevented in susceptible areas by the use of insecticidal bed nets while sleeping. Though the World Health Organization recognizes leishmaniasis as endemic to the Middle East, incidents were slowly decreasing in Syria as a result of an aggressive government health policy before that country’s civil war broke out in 2011.
