The Islamic State has burned the corpses of five ISIS militants who were suspected of contracting Ebola, an Iraqi health official told Kurdish paper Rudaw.
The fighters were incinerated due to the terrorist organization's belief that they had contracted the deadly virus in Mosul, the ISIS stronghold in Iraq, according to Faisal Ghazi, member of the Health Committee in Iraq's council of ministries. The city has been under the control of the Islamic State since June of 2014 and reportedly executed more than a dozen doctors for refusing to treat injured fighters in late December, Mashable reported.
"The Islamic State organization incinerated five militants infected with Ebola to prevent further spread of the disease in Mosul," he said.
"ISIS had proof that these militants were infected with Ebola," he added, without giving details of whether the fighters died of the disease or were murdered and incinerated by the group.
Last week, multiple Iraqi and Kurdish media sourcesBur reported that ISIS militants in Mosul had allegedly contracted Ebola and were showing up in dozens at an Iraqi hospital.
The disease was brought to Mosul by Africa-based Islamist "terrorists" arriving "from several countries.
Since the symptoms of Ebola, which include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, bleeding and bruising, are similar to those of other diseases such as malaria and yellow fever, it could easily have been misdiagnosed, according to Breitbart.
Hence, the reports are being investigated by the World Health Organization. The group is attempting to reach out to officials in ISIS-held areas to offer help in investigating the matter, WHO spokesman Christy Feig said.
"We have no official notification from the Iraqi government that it is Ebola," Feig told Mashable.
However, since UN workers are currently banned from entering ISIS-controlled areas in both Iraq and Syria, it is unlikely that an operation in the region could successfully be carried out.
In addition, the terrorist group is known to be against western science and medicine, which would indicate that health authorities in Mosul might not be properly equipped to test for Ebola or trained to treat patients and prevent the spread of the disease.
"Services are collapsing, prices are soaring, and medicines are scarce in towns and cities across the 'caliphate' proclaimed in Iraq and Syria by ISIS," according to The Washington Post.
Meanwhile, a recent report revealed that ISIS has reportedly found an extremely sordid means to fund its terrorist organization across the Middle East: by trafficking human organs from dead soldiers and dead and living hostages, including children.
