Bikers get food into hungry bellies

Damascus – Every evening during Ramadan, members of a motorbike club zip down the streets of Damascus to deliver meals to those in need during the Muslim holy month.

“We hit the most disadvantaged areas,” said Tarek Obaid, head of Hope Bikers Syria, whose 50 volunteers make and distribute the food for various charities in the Syrian capital.

The bikers – some sporting beards or wearing large silver rings on their fingers – head out as sunset approaches, racing to hand over the food so Muslim recipients can break their daytime fast.

The volunteers don their club’s signature blue vest, the front and back embroidered with their emblem: a flaming motorbike and the Syrian flag.

They help out for “humanitarian or moral” reasons, said Obaid, a swimming coach in his 50s who supervises the Ramadan rounds.

But the act of charity also lessens the stigma around bikes and their “Born to be Wild” image.

“Before, people avoided the motorbikes when they saw them, but now they are happy to see our blue [vests] or hear the noise of our bikes,” Obaid told AFP.

The group says it has no political affiliation and crosses faith boundaries, with Christian and Muslim members.

The Muslims among them break their fast after the rounds are done.

“People have got to know us, they smile at us, they love us,” said Obaid.

Syria has been ravaged by 13 years of war that has killed more than half a million people and battered the country’s economy and infrastructure.

About 90% of the population is in poverty, according to the United Nations.

The motorbike club began its volunteer work during the Covid pandemic, transporting oxygen to those in urgent need.

As the pandemic subsided, the bikers turned their attention elsewhere, including helping victims of an earthquake in February last year that ravaged parts of Syria, killing about 6 000 people.

They have also been part of organising, with nongovernmental organisations, recreational activities for orphaned children.

Earlier in the day, the volunteers gathered at a charity kitchen in Damascus to prepare vegetables, meat and rice, then packaged the meals for distribution. –