#Syria Nov 21/12
Heavy damage in Aleppo as a result of shelling/airstikes. In the first video a block of flats has collapsed. In the rest are the remains of the Shifa field hospital. The hospital was full of wounded people. Over 20 dead reported.
Information and videos via @NuffSilence and @AmalHanano
Report from a field hospital in Maarshourin -IDLIB
Due to the heavy clashes of Maarat el Numan the hero’s have made this field hospital for the wounded with just simple equipment, as you can see!
Q: Dr, what u have in this field hospital?
A: We have bandages, IV’s and simple equipment for stitching simple wounds.
we receive the wounded and send them to hospitals. The closest hospital to us is about 15 to 20 km! We have very limited medicine, we have no electricity!
We need a generator!!! We have no beds, we treat the wounded on the floor!
There is no blood available here, our possibilities are very little. We are tryiing to help as much as we can with these little possibilities!
Translation done by the Syrian Assistance Team!
16/09/12
#Syria, Aleppo - door | | message from a field hospital doctors after the bombing of military aviation hospital
17/08/2012 Rastan, Homs, #Syria: The only makeshift hospital was targeted with more than 15 shells, which resulted into the destruction of nearby houses as well as major damages in the hospital.
17/08/2012 Rastan, Homs, #Syria: This field hospital is filled with the wounded after Assad bombed the city.
15/08/2012 Washing away the blood in #Syria
With the acrid stench of disinfectant in the air, a woman, expressionless and intent on finishing this daily task as quickly as possible, sluices the last puddle of diluted blood off the hospital steps and onto the sidewalk.
For her this is routine. The pale faces of medical staff who for the past hour had been grimacing with intense concentration and inner frustration were close behind her.
“You cannot show our faces on television - you can’t reveal what we are doing here,” one doctor told me.
Two children under five years of age were dead and another - barely alive - had been sent to Turkey in a battered old car. Seven adults were seriously wounded. The hysteria of wailing relatives and children was now gone. The uncomfortable silence was deafening.
The stark reality echoing now in my mind as I write this a week later is that it was nothing unusual - it just happened to be caught on our camera.
Daily trauma
For months we have known about the medics wanting their work to be kept secret for fear they will be targeted in the same way that a rebel fighter could expect.
It had been one snapshot in the chain of daily trauma, the aftermath of what we all hear referred to as “indiscriminate shelling”. The shells from long-range artillery had landed on a village near al-Atarib this time.
A two-year-old boy was lying lifeless on one of two beds in the tiny, ill-equipped emergency room.
The doctors had moved on to another patient after at least ten minutes of CPR, the hand pumped respirator now at work elsewhere.
The toddler’s mother was being restrained in the other bed as a nurse applied bandages to her face. On the floor were injured men and women being checked over in some sort of triage process. And outside this claustrophobic mayhem on the reception room floor, another young child took his final breath.
I have no doubt that no one crammed into those 60 minutes of excruciating attempts to save lives could be described as a revolutionary. They were all civilians. And nobody wanted to talk about freedom or human rights.
There was just a question barked in my direction: “Where is the help that the outside world keeps promising?” Or words to that effect.
‘Guns, not medicine’
Earlier that day, the same question was put to me by a brigadier-general who defected five months ago from his post as head of intelligence for a region that included Aleppo city.
But the question was aimed in a different direction. He wanted more guns, bigger ones. And much more ammunition.
No mention of humanitarian assistance.
Was he a true revolutionary? Well, he says he is now. But a year ago, he was actively at work trying to crush the uprising.
Where do the civilians stand in all of this?
Certainly the majority of the masses who have fled Aleppo and many of those who remain there would not candidly have numbered themselves as actively supporting the uprising months ago.
Top of wish list
Guns, heavier weaponry, bullets, shells and rockets are at the top of the wish list for those fighting President Bashar al-Assad’s forces. Second comes medical personnel, field hospitals, medicine and equipment.
Some of the latter we know have been getting into Syria, mostly through the smuggling routes on Syria’s borders.
Primarily, those routes run through Turkey. It’s a trickle of support, not a surge, though.
My line of thought fast forwards to Istanbul, and coverage of Hillary Clinton’s Saturday visit that packed in separate talks with the Turkish foreign minister, the prime minister, the president, a selection of refugees, activists, prominent opposition members in exile and the Syrian National Council.
One headline to emerge from those meetings was that Turkey and the US had “agreed to accelerate preparations for the fall of the Syrian president”.
Meaning?
The setting up of a bilateral team to help the opposition while trying to work out which part of a splintered political spread of people could be onside. Or, better still, have some semblance of unity.
Also, providing aid to fleeing refugees and planning contingencies for worst-case scenarios that include a chemical weapons attack.
No-fly zone
Questions put at the obligatory joint news conference raised the idea of a no-fly zone - not for the first time.
It wasn’t ruled out by Clinton, who more than made up for any perceived differences with her NATO ally by repeated gushing thanks for Turkey’s costly operation to provide an undeclared safe haven for more than 55,000 registered refugees and the Free Syrian Army.
Plus an assurance that the US would stand by Turkey in its fight with the PKK, the Kurdish Workers’ Party, to ensure it would get no foothold in Northern Syria.
And there was, of course, the announcement of another $5.5 million in humanitarian aid.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, also said a no-fly zone was still on the table, despite the knowledge that Russia and China would be likely to veto any such move.
Clinton said it was going to require more in-depth analysis by the joint working group. It being an election year in the United States, it is unlikely that any unilateral action will be taken. ”Contingency”, “operational planning” and “co-ordination” were the buzz words on Sunday.
Before leaving Istanbul to the surreal feeling of London in Olympic euphoria, my mind went back to the hospital. Political reality is hard to describe to those bereaved or maimed by a war for which initially they had no vested interest.
Daily trauma
I called it a snapshot in a chain of daily trauma. It’s probably more aptly described as a perpetual horror story that, for now, has no end. And it’s playing out every day all over Syria, much of it unseen by media.
The images of the doctors’ pale faces and the children who died take an indelible place in a collage of memory from war zones I have worked in over the past three decades.
Usually, that recurring universal question, where is the help from outside, is eventually answered by meaningful humanitarian aid, with or without military intervention.
For Syria, it’s much more complicated.
And I’m pretty sure that when I return there again soon, I will still stumble to placate or calm the next questioner even more than the last time.
The UN is unable to make a move as long as Russian and Chinese objections continue to exist, and the states that want Assad out of power are engaged in talk of an endgame that doesn’t appear to have been worked out.
And the cleaner in the hospital will still be going through her daily routine of washing away the bloodshed.
Follow Al Jazeera’s Andrew Simmon’s on Twitter @SimmJazeera.
10/08/2012 Homs, #Syria: Activists takes us inside a Tal Kalakh field hospital in Homs, revealing an extreme shortage of equipment and medicine. [English subtitles]
13/08/2012 Qusayr, Homs, #Syria *Graphic*: At a field clinic of Qusayr, a medical team operates on a wounded despite shelling and lack of essential medical supplies.
Homsi field clinics are under immense pressure as a result of Assads constant attack and shelling that targets heavily populated Homsi neighbourhoods.
07/08/2012 Aleppo, #Syria *EXTREMELY GRAPHIC*: Leg amputation surgery was done to an injured civilian in Al-Shaar field hospital in Aleppo.
Mahmoud, a 21-year-old Palestinian resident of Syria, rests in a field hospital after he was found, Aug. 6, 2012, having been blindfolded, beaten and sprayed with bullets. (AP)
07/08/2012
(AP) ANADAN, Syria — The guards pulled him from his cell before dawn on Monday, bound his hands, blindfolded him and drove him to an empty lot in the Syrian city of Aleppo. They sat him in a row with 10 other captives, he said, then cocked their guns and opened fire.
“They sprayed us,” recalled 21-year-old Mahmoud, the lone survivor of the latest mass killing of Syria’s civil war. “The first bullet hit my chest, then one hit my foot, then my head. As soon as my head got hit, I thought, `I’m dead.”’
Reports of such killings have surfaced frequently during the 17 months of deadly violence that activists seeking to topple President Bashar Assad say has killed more than 19,000 people. But details are usually scarce — no more than activist reports or amateur videos of bloodied bodies or mass graves posted on YouTube.
Mahmoud related his grisly ordeal to The Associated Press hours after it happened. Struggling to speak, he lay in a bed in a makeshift rebel-run field hospital set up in a wedding hall in this town 13 miles north of Aleppo. Bandages covered his foot, head and chest. Plastic vines and colored lights adorned the walls of the darkened building, and two red velvet chairs once used by brides and grooms sat on a small stage.
Mahmoud gave only his first name to protect his family who still live in the area.
While his story could not be independently confirmed, Mahmoud’s wounds matched his story and residents who found him and his dead colleagues corroborated certain details.
Together, they painted a picture of the summary slaying of 10 men, at least some of whom had only loose links to the armed rebels seeking to topple the regime. That story jibes with activist claims of the increasingly brutal tactics regime forces are using to try to crush the rebellion that has spread to Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.
Syria’s uprising started in March 2011 with peaceful protests calling for political reforms that were met with a fierce regime crackdown. Government brutality grew as dissent spread, and many in the opposition took up arms as the conflict morphed into a civil war.
Aleppo has been a stronghold of government support throughout the uprising, with a wealthy business class and many minority communities who fear they’ll suffer if Assad falls. Until recently, the city of some 4 million people had been spared the violence that has ravaged other Syrian cities.
But during the last two weeks, rebels have been pushing into Aleppo’s neighborhoods, clashing with security forces and torching police stations in a push to “liberate” the city. Syrian media has vowed the army is gearing up for a “decisive battle,” while anti-regime activists have reported swelling numbers of troops and tanks on the city’s edges.
The Syrian government blames the uprising on armed gangs and terrorists backed by foreign powers that seek to weaken Syria.
Mahmoud receives treatment in a field hospital after he was found Aug. 6, 2012, with three gunshot wounds in the town of Anadan
(Credit: AP)It was amid these tensions that Mahmoud, a Palestinian resident of Aleppo, had his fateful brush with Syrian security. On Thursday, Mahmoud said, he and a friend went to collect their paychecks from the thread factory where they work and heard clashes nearby. Soon eight men in civilian clothes stopped them and asked for their IDs and cell phones.
On Mahmoud’s phone they found videos of anti-government demonstrations and messages he sent to rebels from the Free Syrian Army, asking God to protect them and make them victorious. The men threw Mahmoud and his friend in the trunk of a car and drove them to a trash dump, where they were blindfolded, bound and beaten with sticks and large rocks before being taken to a security office.
Mahmoud was locked in a crowded cell with about a dozen other men, he said. Each day, some were taken out and new ones brought in.
“We were there for four days and they only gave us water to drink once. They never fed us,” he said. “They never asked us anything. Every day it was beating, beating, beating.”
Before dawn on Monday, guards pulled Mahmoud and 10 others from their cells and told they were going to see a judge. They were bound at the wrists, blindfolded and driven to Aleppo’s Khaldiyeh neighborhood, where they were lined up on a patch of rocky soil.
“They sat us all down next to each other, `You here, you here, you here,”’ Mahmoud said. “Then each one cocked his weapon and the shooting started.”
Mahmoud was shot three times. Bullets pierced his chest and foot and one grazed his skull. Minutes later, silence returned, and he realized he was still alive.
“I breathed, I said the shehada,” he said, referring to the Muslim declaration of faith meant to put him right with God. “I tried to get up then started screaming because blood was coming out of me.”
He scraped his face on a rock to remove the blindfold and crawled to where some nearby residents found him.
Among them was a 22-year-old electrician who said he heard the gunfire early Monday and worried that people were being killed because he had discovered six bodies in the same spot a day earlier. He showed videos of the victims on his cell phone, their bodies piled atop each other covered in blood, some bearing large bruises that appeared to be from beatings. He said all had been shot dead.
He and others asked not to have their names published because they have to pass through government checkpoints to get home.
The killings shocked residents of Khaldiyeh, a working-class neighborhood on Aleppo’s northwest side that has seen little violence until now. While many residents support the rebels, they have not established a foothold in the area, and the relative quiet has drawn thousands of people fleeing violence in other Aleppo neighborhoods or nearby villages.
As Mahmoud spoke, a white pickup pulled up outside the field hospital with the bodies of nine of the men killed Monday. The body of the tenth victim had been taken away by his family. All still had their hands bound and two still wore blindfolds. Two had bullet wounds to their heads, and others had blood on their faces and chests or coming out of their ears. None wore shoes.
Those killings convinced one Khaldiyeh resident who helped collect the bodies that the neighborhood needs arms.
“We want the Free Army to come to our neighborhood to protect us,” he said. “If they can’t come, then they need to give us weapons so we can defend ourselves.”
The field hospital’s doctor, Mohammed Ajaj, said he is no longer shocked when the dead and wounded pass through town on their way to burial in nearby villages or for treatment across the northern border in Turkey.
“We’ve gotten used to it,” he said.
An 18-year-old activist who helped collect the bodies said none of them had IDs.
“We really know nothing about them,” he said, adding that he would stop in neighboring villages to see if anyone recognized them before delivering them to a morgue further north.
“If nobody claims them, we’ll take their photos and put them on our Facebook page so their families can find out that they’re dead,” he said.
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