Syria rescuers scrambling to cope with heavy raids
DOuma: Exhausted and overstretched, Syrian rescue worker Abu Mohammad Omar could barely catch his breath between searches for survivors in his bombed-out hometown near Damascus.
The uptick in bombardment over the past three days on the rebelheld enclave of Eastern Ghouta has left already-overburdened medical staff and emergency workers struggling to rescue and treat affected residents.
“We can’t keep up. We’re trying as much as we can,” Omar said.
“We’re rushing, doing the work that we’re doing, but we can’t get to everything.”
On Wednesday, more than two dozen civilians were killed in Syrian government bombardment on Eastern Ghouta, where some 400,000 people live under government siege.
It followed one of Eastern Ghouta’s bloodiest days yet, with 80 civilians killed and more than 200 wounded on Tuesday. At least 38 were killed on Wednesday and 31 on Monday.
With few bulldozers and precious little fuel to operate them, rescue workers are struggling to reach trapped civilians in time, said Omar.
The 23-year-old’s voice cracked as he described trying to find survivors in the rubble of a five-storey building in the town of Douma on Tuesday.
“There was a huge, huge escalation against the city. More than one place was reduced to rubble. The machines we had couldn’t keep up,” he said.
They searched one collapsed building for 10 hours for any survivors, but eventually had to move on to another bomb site.
“If we had more machines or equipment, we could have saved a life. Every minute counts,” Omar said.
At 1am on Wednesday, after scouring the rubble for a single suspected survivor, a salvo of bullets and rockets forced them to abandon the search.
“Bombardment was still going on this morning. But despite everything, this guy under the rubble – we won’t leave him,” he added.
“We’ll bring him back to his family, even if he’s dead.”
Eastern Ghouta has been under siege since 2013, making food and medical supplies difficult to access and directly affecting the resources available for rescue workers. — AFP