THERE IS NOTHING MORE THE DOCTORS CAN DO. THE BOY IS DEAD. HIS PARENTS IN AGONY. Aleppo (Al-Safira): May 15, 2013 - Mustafa Bin Khaled is only 5 years old. That did not matter to Assad’s forces when they shelled his home. His parents brought him to the clinic in hopes he could be saved, but the force was too great, the medical attention to inadequate. He died. 

You can hear is parents crying in the background. 

Thanks @aleppomediacent

USING AN ANCIENT MACHINE, THEY ATTEMPT TO X-RAY THIS INJURED LITTLE BOY. Homs (Al Ghanto): Mar 30, 2013 - He was injured when the shell the exploded in his home pierced his body with shrapnel. Doctors do what they can with the little working equipment they have. 

Thanks @AbuBakerSaleh92

Channel 4 Report: Syria’s Descent: The Agony of Aleppo

For Aleppo’s children “blood has become like water”. Filmmaker Marcel Mettelsiefen has spent several weeks meeting children facing unimaginable horror as they work in a city hospital.  

Twelve-year-old Mohamed Asaf’s days are filled treating Aleppo’s war wounded. He starts work at 8am and usually gets to bed by 11pm.  

When filmmaker Marcel Mettelsiefen meets him in the city’s Dar al-Shifa clinic, Mohamed is battling to save a young girl’s life.  

After months bearing witness to the human tragedy of Syria’s civil war, he has become desensitised to the horrors: “With time it has become easy: blood has become like water to me,” he says.  

“In the beginning, when I saw blood, I would shiver and be frightened but now I see blood as water I don’t have any problem when I see it.”  

Mohammed is just one of many children in Aleppo growing old before their time. Another young medic, Yussef Mohamed, tenderly cares for an injured fighter from the Free Syrian Army. Their worlds have been turned upside down: in Aleppo, adults are being cared for by children.  

Before Aleppo entered the revolution this city had 5,000 medical staff. Now 600,000 civilians are cared for by just 30 doctors and nurses, along with the help of children like Yussef and Mohamed.

A scarred city Aleppo is a broken city.

People fish the river Queiq for bodies. It used to be sacred but not anymore. A hundred and ninety bodies have been recovered from the water so far, some with their hands tied behind their backs.  

The dead are buried in a playground - the gravediggers do their work in the shadow of a children’s game of football. A makeshift office is set up to identify the victims.  There is no running water in Aleppo, no electricity and food is far from plentiful. With little government or international aid getting through there is a void to fill and hard-line Islamist group Al Nusra is on hand to help. Their aid vans patrol the streets handing out clothing and food. It is a PR opportunity and a chance for them to win hearts and minds of the people.  

For the people in Aleppo have much to fear. Three days after we filmed 11-year-old Yussef Mohamed treating an injured soldier he was killed by a government shell. Another young victim of Syria’s descent into civil war.

Marcel Mettelsiefen offers some words on the Syrian Revolution:

HIS CRIES CANNOT BE HEARD. HIS PAIN IS NOT REAL. HIS WOUNDS DO NOT BLEED. Damascus (Sahya): Mar 23, 2013 - For he is a Syrian boy injured by Assad’s forces, when a shell fired by Assad’s army landed in his home. To most of the world, especially Assad’s forces and supporters, this boy does not exist. They choose to ignore his cries. They elect to close their hearts to his pain. They refuse to believe that his blood bleeds red. 

Thanks @LccSy

JUST ANOTHER ‘REGULAR’ DAY IN DOUMA DAMASCUS. MANY INJURED, MOSTLY CHILDREN. Damascus (Douma): Mar 19, 2013 - How much context can I add to a video like this? Pain, suffering, death, agony, misery … it’s all here in this short clip of a few moments in a makeshift clinic in the Damascus suburb of Douma. All were injured from an attack by Assad’s forces.

Thanks @MahmodDoumany

WHAT ON EARTH IS ASSAD DOING TO OR CHILDREN? Damascus (Babila): Feb 6, 2013 - He sobs uncontrollably from pain and fear. He was injured when Assad’s forces shelled his home and burned/injured him. The only treatment he can get is basic first aid at a makeshift clinic.

This is a scene repeated across Syria each day. Dozens of children are killed each day and literally hundreds are injured. The scars are both physical and emotional. The parents of these children must watch their children suffer in agony, not being able to help them or protect them against Assad’s war against Syria’s children.

Thanks @YallaSouriya

Idleb (Maaret Al Nouma): Jan 28, 2013 - If Assad cannot rule it, he will destroy it and burn it to the ground. As his forces use this ‘scorched earth’ policy across Syria, it’s always the children that pay the heaviest price.

A little girl, Maha Al-Adil is killed when a shell strikes her home. The force of the blast was so violent her chest was ripped open straight through to her heart.

Maha’s two sisters were also killed. Hana’a and Arfa’a Al-Adil. The writing on their burial shrouds pronounces them Heros. The crowd gathers around them with a fragment of the bomb that killed them. They say: ‘This was a gift to us from Russia, from (Sergey) Lavrov”

Listen to this little boy whimper. Listen to his labored and painful cries. He just had his leg blown off in an attack by Assad’s forces. The medical ‘treatment’ he receives is ancient. Little to no painkillers or anesthetics. 

This is the same boy above when doctors were treating his wounded leg.

More children are being treated in the makeshift clinic. All crying and terrified and seriously injured.

Thanks @SyrianSmurf @ANA_Feed @EatingMyPeaz

COLD. DARK. MISERABLE. TERRIFYING. A CLINIC IN BABA AMR. Homs (Baba Amr): Jan 25, 2013 - There is no where else to go. They are surrounded, again, from all sides by Assad’s army, his feared shabiha and a new ultra-sectarian ‘National Defense Army’. This is in addition to the non-stop air-strikes and shelling.

This is the only clinic in the Baba Amr / Kafr Aya / Jobar area. It’s a converted basement apartment.

Another video of the misery

Thanks AbuBakerSaleh92

This is a ‘field hospital’ in Baba Amr, Homs (Syria) … to you it’s just a crowded room in a bombed out building. To us it’s the last hope people in Baba Amr have of staying alive after Assad’s forces attack.

Thanks @eman_cipation_

THIS IS THE ONLY ‘HOSPITAL’ IN BABA AMR. THIS IS THE ONLY HOPE PEOPLE HAVE. Homs (Baba Amr): Jan 24, 2013 - The people in this makeshift clinic are recovering from a massacre. Assad’s ground forces, his airforce and a newly formed ultra-sectarian militia (National Defense Army) have been attacking this area of Homs for the past week and there is nothing locals can do. The local FSA is too weak and undersupplied to put up any meaningful resistance.

In this video, Dr Mohammed pleads with the world, the Red Crescent, the Red Cross …anyone to come and help them. His pleas fall on deaf ears though. They are the same pleas that went unanswered a year ago in Baba Amr when Assad’s forces attacked and eventually over-ran the neighborhood, razing most of it to the ground.

This was the scene in the clinic a few days ago. (video here and here)

Thanks @hlk01

WHAT WILL HIS PARENTS SAY TO HIM WHEN HE ASKS WHERE HIS HAND WENT? Damascus (Douma): Jan 13, 2013 - What can they tell him? The truth is what they will tell him. Bashar Al Assad blew this little boy’s hand off so that he would never raise his fist in the air against the Assad regime again. 

This is what Assad is doing to the children of Syria. If he can’t kill them, he’ll scar them for life.

Thanks @MahmodDoumany

This article originally appeared in French in Le Monde.

In June, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières-France (MSF) opened a hospital in the Idlib region in northern Syria, an area under rebel control. Located behind the front lines, the hospital has 15 beds and a staff of approximately 50, including 10 international MSF workers. Designed to perform war surgery, the facility also offers medical and surgical emergency care as the front moves further away. MSF’s Belgian and Spanish sections managed two other hospitals in Syria.

Fabrice Weissman, MSF’s operations advisor, returned from a mission in Syria in early December. He was particularly struck by the breadth of the needs and the lack of international response.

What are the conditions facing MSF’s medical staff in the Idlib region? 

As soon as you cross the border, you are vulnerable to aerial bombing by the Syrian air force, even behind battle lines. Hospitals are at particular risk, as they have become one of the government’s preferred targets. As a result, public hospitals are deserted. Temporary field hospitals that do perform surgery tend to be hidden in individual houses and abandoned public facilities or are buried underground. When they are spotted, the doctors change location. 

This makes it difficult to organize medical treatment. Some Syrian medical professionals have gone into exile and dentists and pharmacists are providing emergency medical care. Their skills are improving but they are rarely trained in war surgery, which presents specific complications such as bone infections, and in triaging victims during mass influx of wounded. Even so, they are managing quite well given the conditions and increasing stock-outs of medical supplies such as anesthetics. Syrian doctors from the diasporas are coming to help out, too. 

What struck me most profoundly about this conflict is the way health facilities have became part of the war zone. The Syrian army is waging a war against health workers and services operating in opposition-controlled areas. Using health care denial as a weapon of oppression, the government has de facto transformed health care provision as a weapon of resistance.

Do international humanitarian aid organizations like MSF have a significant presence in Syria?

You don’t see the traditional aid actors—such as the United Nations agencies and the major humanitarian NGOs—in Syria. Acting officially in support of the Syrian government, the UN does not have Damascus’ authorization to provide cross-border assistance into rebel-held areas, which have significantly expanded over the past six months. However, precedents do exist, as in South Sudan in the 1980s, where the UN intervened in areas that were not under the legal government’s control, based on a Security Council resolution or following direct negotiations with the parties. 

With regard to nongovernmental organizations, very limited funds are allocated to those that want to work in rebel-held areas. There’s a paradox here because the European Union and the US support the opposition, but are providing minimal financial and diplomatic support to humanitarian organizations ready to operate in rebel territory. Most international aid is allocated to the government-held areas, through the ICRC, the World Food Program, the UNHCR, all working with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent Society. The needs in the rebel-held areas are not being met. 

However, there is an aid network organized by Syrians in the country and in the diasporas, with the help of neighboring countries and Gulf nations. But it’s not enough. Traditional international aid would be more than welcome to support the efforts of this local network. That would require diplomatic courage on the part of the UN agencies and the states that support them—whether the European Union, the US, Russia, China, and others. 

What needs did you observe on site? 

There are extensive treatment needs in the area of chronic illnesses, which are the primary cause of mortality (specifically diabetes, kidney failure, hypertension and heart problems, and cancer). The organization of medical care has virtually collapsed and there are shortages of specialized medicine, as 90 percent of drugs were produced previously in Syria. Fatal respiratory illnesses are also a source of concern, given winter conditions. Children and the elderly are of course the most vulnerable. The weakest members of the population are experiencing mortality rates and suffering that could be prevented. 

The number of wounded has increased significantly over the last six months as a result of the intensification of fighting (among the 60,000 deaths counted by the UN Human Rights Commission, more than 40,000 occurred since June alone). At the same time, the types of wounds are changing, with growing numbers of people injured by ammunition fragments during aerial and artillery bombing. Among the 500 wounded treated in MSF facilities so far, 70 percent presented extensive soft tissue and bone damage due to shrapnel. Some need major reconstructive surgery that requires hospitalization abroad, in Jordan, Lebanon, or Turkey, where 700 hospital beds are currently dedicated to Syrian patients. On the other hand, we have not seen any illnesses related to the use of combat gas.

Beyond medical assistance, there are other major needs. Daily life has become very difficult. There is a housing crisis resulting from the internal population displacement. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) estimates that some two million people are displaced. Most are living with relatives living further away from the frontlines or in tent camps, most located close to the Turkish border. The conditions in those camps are very precarious, particularly given the arrival of winter, with freezing temperatures at night. There is also an energy crisis. Diesel, which was subsidized before the war, is hard to find and of poor quality. Its price has increased twenty- or thirty-fold, triggering a dramatic increase in transport and food prices. There is an acute shortage of baby formula, milk, and flour. Bread is becoming scarce in several towns. The situation calls for large-scale food assistance by the World Food Program and other humanitarian agencies.

You can help MSF in Syria by donating here … Medecins Sans Frontieres

HER MOTHER WAS KILLED. HER FATHER WAS WOUNDED, AND SO WAS SHE. Aleppo: Jan 11, 2013 - Her name is Amal and she is 4 years old. She was also wounded in the strike against her home by Assad’s forces. She is being treated in a makeshift clinic. She probably doesn’t even know that her mother is dead yet … 

Thanks @AmalHanano

Hama (Kafrnaboodeh): Dec 30, 2012 - This is how ‘first aid’ is administered in Syria, where Assad’s forces have destroyed most hospitals and have refused, for almost two years now, to admit anyone they injure into government run hospitals. 

A little girl is being revived in the back of an ‘ambulance’ (pickup truck) by a ‘trained medical doctor’ (local volunteer) after her home was shelled by Assad’s forces … I do not know if she lived or not

A young boy in a ‘hospital’ (makeshift clinic) is being given CPR by volunteers while a little girl near him is having her head stitched … both are victims of the same shell strike by Assad’s forces. I do not know if the boy lived or not

Thanks @ANA_Feed @EatingMyPeaz