A team of Free Burma Rangers (FBR), also dubbed  "doctors with guns", is in the war-torn region of Iraq to lend a helping hand to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces to fight the Islamic State (Isis).

According to a Rudaw report, the FBR have been providing much needed critical care to the Peshmerga soldiers wounded in the frontline areas while fighting the Isis.

Since March, the Free Burma Rangers - which is a Christian humanitarian group that works primarily in heavily forested border regions of Myanmar - have been delivering emergency medical assistance to the sick and the internally displaced. The doctors have visited Iraq thrice this year on their mission. 

While their help has been welcomed by the Kurdish soldiers on the frontline, the Burmese group has courted controversy for siding with the Kurds, the report noted.

Joseph, one of the Burmese medics who arrived in Iraq last month, assisted the Peshmerga while they tried to recapture the Yazidi city of Sinjar back from the Isis.

Talking to the Kurdish news source Rudaw, while treating a soldier injured by a mortar, Joseph said that "in the jungle, even if a mortar lands near, it's no problem." But in Sinjar (also known as Shingal), he said "it's pretty different."

Since FBR is neither supported by the Thai or the Burmese authorities, their activity inside the Burmese border is clandestine. 

The FBR members are trained in frontline medical treatment and reconnaissance techniques. In addition to delivering humanitarian relief, the teams are trained in obtaining evidence of military violence and human rights abuse.

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