CONDEMNED »»

Winter will be next weapon Brave smiles hide their plight as drugs run out

AMID the hell of Aleppo, with bombs raining down all around them, the smiles of these sick children are testament to an astonishing and deeply moving courage.

Because even if there were peace in this war-torn city, they would still be facing a life and death battle.

All the terror around them has done is made that fight even harder as the drugs that could give them a chance of survival run dry.

These are the cancer-stricken children of Aleppo. Condemned to die while trapped in a crazy no- man’s land between a deadly disease and sheer human brutality.

Yet they lie smiling as fresh horrors continue to emerge from Syria, where President Bashar al-Assad and Russia’s Vladimir Putin continue their horrific assault on rebel-held districts.

And as more bombing victims are wheeled into their hospital, one of the youngsters – a little girl – even wanders the corridors singing to patients with appalling injuries to try to cheer them up.

Outside, her country crumbles around her. Charities claim food supplies in besieged areas are due to run out by November and the regime has been accused of “weaponising” food.

DESPERATE

Pregnant women are so sapped of energy they no longer have the strength for childbirth. In besieged Madaya in the south of Syria, doctors have reported 10 miscarriages in the last six months alone and say they have had to perform as many as 60 caesarian sections.

Meanwhile back in Aleppo’s University Hospital – the city’s only clinic with a paediatric cancer ward – desperate medics struggle to provide the youngsters with even the most basic of care.

Smugglers risk their lives to bring chemotherapy drugs into the city, but the black market forces up the price of life-saving drugs well beyond the means of the children’s poverty stricken families, who have lost everything to the aerial bombardment.

Doctors can provide only sporadic treatment, with courses of chemotherapy punctuated by road blockades, damaged facilities and draining resources.

The outside world’s sanctions against Syria have made it worse. Dr Hiba, head of the oncology ward, says: “Because of sanctions we are not able to bring in drugs for children with cancer.

“We used to provide SYRIAN and Russian forces are using starvation and the coming winter as weapons to crush Aleppo into surrender, campaigners claim.

Hospitals are likely to be overwhelmed, warned aid worker Mohamad Katoub.

He said: “There are 300,000 people stuck in the city and just 25 doctors in nine facilities but not all of them are hospitals.

“Winter is coming and it is going to get very cold, as low as minus 8C, and there is not the supplies.

“People will freeze to death because they will be out of fuel within weeks. The siege is killing people slowly. Starvation is a massive problem.” Turkey-based Mr Katoub, who works for medical support group the Syrian American Society, said charities were sometimes still able to send money.

He added: “In besieged areas all we can do is send cash to hospitals.” Medics then managed to buy some of the few remaining supplies smuggled in.