Amid pounding of Aleppo, volunteer rescue workers battle on
BEIRUT, LEBANON — For Ammar Salmo, his daily bid to save lives as bombs and artillery shells fall from the skies on Aleppo is caught up in a daunting barrage of obstacles: the barrel bombs that tumble from the backs of Syrian Army helicopters, the airstrikes that collapse apartment blocks and houses, the lack of medical facilities even as more than 300 people reportedly have died in the city in the past two weeks alone – turning all sense of humanity on its head.
“In Aleppo right now … day is like night because we are attacked at every moment. And we are so exhausted,” says Mr. Salmo, the Syria Civil Defense chief in Aleppo, speaking with a breathless urgency via Whatsapp from his headquarters in the city. “We are exhausted because we cannot sleep at night because of the [sound] of the clashes, the [sound] of the war, of the aircraft that are all the time in the sky…. It is so hard and difficult right now, but we will work as long as we can breathe.”
Amid the bloodshed and destruction that has ravaged Aleppo, Syria’s second city, a group of volunteer activists face a Sisyphean task, risking their own lives to save lives, pulling the dead and wounded alike from the shattered ruins of buildings toppled by barrel bombs, missiles, and artillery fire – taking on roles for which nothing they experienced before Syria dissolved into civil war could have prepared them.
They belong to the Syria Civil Defense, popularly known as the White Helmets for the color of their protective headgear.
When bombs turn buildings into piles of dust-coated rubble, the White Helmets – both men and women – are ready to deal with the grim aftermath, providing the only search-and-rescue asset operating in many areas outside government control. So far, the group claims to have saved more than 60,000 lives.
But the intensity of the airstrikes and artillery shelling in the past two weeks and the humanitarian conditions that result make it a near impossible task.
“In the past six years we have seen nothing like this. There is nothing to eat, no water, and there are a lot of attacks and they have been hitting hospitals… You can’t imagine the situation in Aleppo,” says Abdelrahman Hassan, a White Helmets volunteer from Aleppo.
Learning from earthquakes
The Syria Civil Defense has its origins in early 2013, when a need arose for search-and-rescue teams to help extricate casualties from bombed buildings. James Le Mesurier, director of Mayday Rescue, was working with ARK, a Turkish NGO, at the time, promoting good governance and civil society support in areas of northern Syria that were under rebel control.
“We would meet with local leaders and offer them support, to which their general response was, ‘What am I supposed to do with a laptop when I’m being bombed. I don’t want civil society training,’ ” he says.
Instead, ARK decided to offer more practical support in training teams of Syrian volunteers in search-and-rescue techniques, a skill prevalent in earthquake-prone Turkey.
“So we thought, if you can rescue someone from a building that’s been hit by an earthquake, you can rescue someone from a building that’s been hit by a bomb,” Mr. Le Mesurier says.
Today, nearly 3,000 Syria Civil Defense volunteers are scattered across the country in 121 teams. So far, 145 of them have been killed. Although it operates in areas outside government control, the group says
it is a humanitarian, nonpolitical organization that is willing to provide assistance to anyone who needs it.
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