Doctors’ convoy of hope to build Aleppo a new hospital
TWO doctors who raised more than £160,000 to build a children’s hospital outside Aleppo set off yesterday on a 6,000 mile round-trip to bring hope to the people of Syria.
A lorry full of medical supplies left Chelsea and Westminster hospital bound for a secret location on the Turkish-Syrian border just after midday.
Some 3,000 supporters of the People’s Convoy had pledged to give the huge sum in just 10 days via a fundraising website – far surpassing the original target of £91,000.
The money raised has been spent on enough medical equipment to kit out an entire hospital in the Syrian countryside, from bandages, stethoscopes and basic medical kit to incubators for babies.
Along the way, organisers will meet up with their counterparts in France, who have raised an additional €80,000 (£67,000) – just shy of their target of €100,000 (£83,000)
Once at the border the contents of the truck will be handed over to members of Syria’s Independent Doctors Association, before being taken to a building earmarked for renovation.
There, local teams will take 2-3 weeks to “build” a functioning children’s hospital from scratch. More than 300 hospitals and medical centres have been destroyed, costing scores of lives, since the outbreak of hostilities five years ago. Both the location of the latest aid drop and the hospital are being kept a secret to prevent them being targeted by the Assad regime and Vladimir Putin’s bombers.
The convoy has been organised by Dr Rola Hallam, 37, and Dr Saleyha Ahsan, 45, a former Army medic who now works as an A&E doctor in Bangor, Wales. More than 30 members of Dr Hallam’s family have been killed since the conflict began five years ago.
A consultant anaesthetist at the Royal Free Hospital in London, Dr Hallam said seeing images of the deliberate targeting of the medical facility was a “devastating blow” and prompted her to launch the appeal a fortnight ago.
She added: “These are war crimes which have been allowed to continue with impunity and I felt it was time that we, the people, took action.”
The People’s Convoy is supported by organisations including Doctors of the World, Doctors for Human Rights, Hand in Hand for Syria, the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, and the Robert F Kennedy Center for Justice and Human Rights.
other aid agencies warned that children and the wounded were most at risk of dying from exposure to the cold temperatures.
“This winter will be a killer for thousands of families lacking the basic protection of a roof over their heads,” said the Norwegian Refugee Council, adding that it was “a race against time to ensure the safe evacuation of people who wish to leave”.
Around 10,000 people were able to get out of east Aleppo on Thursday and Friday, but the evacuation came to a halt as the Syrian regime and its Iranian allies demanded that people be allowed to leave two villages under siege by rebel forces.
Pro-regime forces said they would stop any more departures from Aleppo until civilians were also allowed to leave the Shia areas of Kefraya and Fua, which have been surrounded by opposition forces since last year.
The two sides were locked in negotiations over the issue last night as optimistic aid officials urged both sides to move quickly.
Syrian rebel groups accused both the Syrian regime and Iran of changing the terms of the original deal by suddenly introducing the fate of the two villages into the talks on Aleppo.
“Iran and its sectarian proxies are us- ing the humanitarian situation of our people in besieged Aleppo and preventing civilians from leaving until the evacuation of their groups in Fua and Kefraya,” said Munir al-Sayal from the Ahrar al Sham rebel group.
But there were indications that rebel groups may also be using the talks to try to secure evacuations from the towns of Madaya and Zabadani, which are besieged by regime loyalists. It was not clear if those towns would be included in a final deal.
Jan Egeland, the UN’s humanitarian adviser on Syria, warned against linking the crisis in Aleppo to the situation in other areas, saying it was “wrong to condition saving one group on deals for others in need elsewhere”.
Reports and rumours continued to swirl of field executions carried out by Shia militia fighters against civilians among the 50,000 people still trapped inside rebel areas of east Aleppo.
Several Aleppo residents said they had heard of people being shot dead at a Hizbollah checkpoint, but
was unable to confirm the story.
The UN warned of reprisals against civilians and David Miliband, the former foreign secretary, said there was “house-to-house murder” in newly recaptured neighbourhoods.
As civilians in east Aleppo shivered and waited, Syrian regime forces yesterday went on a victory lap to mark their success after four years of fighting for the country’s largest city.
Pro-government fighters rallied on the steps of the Citadel, a 13th-century fortress, whose turrets and walls have been battered and pockmarked by shelling and gunfire.
A few streets away, there was a hint of the real driving force behind the Assad regime’s success in retaking Aleppo. Photographs showed Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Quds Force, touring a recaptured neighbourhood.
Mr Soleimani, nicknamed the “Shadow Commander”, has been a ubiquitous presence on the battlefields of the Middle East in recent years, directing Shia militias in Mosul and appearing in Fallujah in May, and his presence in Aleppo is a sign of the major role played by both Iranian troops and allied fighters from Hizbollah.
Civilians who have made it out of Aleppo are still coming to grips with life after four years of urban warfare. Among them is Modar Sheko, 28, a nurse who left by bus after 12 hours of waiting in the freezing cold.
Mr Sheko lost more than most in the years of fighting. His sister was killed in an air strike at the hospital where she worked in 2012. His brother was killed in November and his father died hours later after being caught in an air strike as he looked for a grave for his son.
But despite all he has lost, he still yearned for what he had left behind. “My soul is still in the besieged city along with my friends and my house and my land,” he said.