Islamic State (IS) used to rely on captured oil fields in various areas, including Iraq to generate funds for its terrorist operations in the Middle East; however, the group has begun to sell human organs, removed from "live" hostages and its own dead militants, according to Iraqi Otolaryngologist, Siruwan Al Mosuli. Iraqi doctor's testimony: Al Mosuli told Al Monitor on December 5 that the group leaders have been hiring foreign doctors for months to perform surgeries on live hostages, including children kidnapped from Christian and Yazidi minorities in Iraq and Syria, and its dead militants to harvest their human organs. He revealed that the group leaders instructed the doctors to organize a wide organ trafficking operation at a hospital in the Iraqi city of Mosul. Al Monitor reported that IS has created a special division tasked with organ trafficking, where doctors remove human livers, kidneys and hearts, to sell them on the international black market. Mosuli revealed that surgeries take place in the hospital before organs are quickly transferred through organ trafficking networks. Assyrian International News Agency reported that trafficked human organs are sent to neighboring countries, like Turkey where criminal networks sell them to buyers on the international black market. Iraqi ambassador to the UN confirmation: Iraq's ambassador to the UN, Mohamed Al Hakim confirmed that IS is harvesting human organs, during an emergency United Nations Security Council summit on February 18, after IS militants beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians in Libya. Al Hakim stressed that Iraqi authorities have discovered corpses with surgical wounds and no kidneys in mass graves. "We have bodies. Come and examine them. It is clear they are missing certain parts," he added. He affirmed that dozens of doctors were executed in Mosul, northern Iraq, after refusing to remove human organs from IS victims. The diplomat criticized IS for committing "genocides" against ethnic minorities, "These terrorist groups have desecrated all human values. They have committed the most heinous criminal terrorist acts against the Iraqi people whether Shi'ite, Sunni, Christians, Turkmen, Shabak or Yazidis." United Nations investigates into IS harvesting of human organs: Special representative of the UN secretary general for Iraq, Nickolay Mladenov said the UN would investigate into the issue of IS harvesting human organs, during the Security Council's emergency summit. "We have seen these reports as well, but I do not want to hasten to confirm anything before we study them in greater detail," Mladenov told the council. He added that reports over the group's use of "human trafficking as part of its sources of income" have been the subject of discussions for months. Moreover, he explained: "I cannot speak to the extent of that issue until we finalize our analysis of the problem but if one looks at the broader picture, it is very clear that the brutality and the tactics that IS is using expand by the day."
