Red Crescent caught between warring factions
OTTAWA — For the past two years, Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) president Abdul Rahman Attar and his 10,000 volunteers and workers have been fighting on two fronts.
Caught between warring factions as violence continues to rip apart Syria, the agency — Syria’s equivalent of the Red Cross — has had to contend with looting, threats of violence, arbitrary arrests and the killing of 17 staff members.
The organization also has found its reputation under fire from Syrian-Canadian groups and others who have accused it of being little more than a puppet for Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.
In an interview with Postmedia News this past week, Attar said SARC has faced problems helping the millions of people affected by Syria’s two-year-old civil war.
But he blasted allegations the agency has been working with the Syrian government or any other side in the conflict, saying the organization is independent and doing the best job it can in what is an extremely complicated and dangerous environment.
“The blood of the 17 volunteers who have been killed shows our independence,” Attar said. “They paid with their lives just to save the most vulnerable people and to move the injured people.”
During the interview at the Canadian Red Cross’s head office, Attar painted a picture of a country torn apart by warring factions looking out for their own interests while refusing to obey international humanitarian law and the Geneva Conventions.
This has made the efforts to provide emergency help and assistance hard and dangerous as SARC faces difficulties securing safe passage to what Attar calls “hot areas.”
“It takes us a long time because you cannot enter these areas unless you get permission from both sides,” said Attar, who was in Ottawa to meet Canadian officials.
“And inside the hot areas, there is more than one faction.”
He said this is why SARC was, until recently, unable to provide assistance to the north of the country, where rebels and those opposed to Assad’s rule initially staked their claim.
“Some people were a bit unhappy with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent because they have been unable to go to the north part of Syria,” he said.
But Attar said his volunteers and workers have worked hard to maintain their neutrality in the face of pressure and threats from all sides.
He describes an incident where a SARC ambulance carrying a wounded Syrian was stopped at a government checkpoint and the Red Crescent workers were ordered to turn over the injured man because he was on a list of suspected dissidents.
“We stayed three hours negotiating with them,” Attar said, “and then we succeeded in bringing him to the university hospital.”
The agency also has closed down clinics and hospitals when facing pressure to serve one faction or another.
Meanwhile, 17 SARC workers have been killed, including two in March, while 23 vehicles have been hijacked and six ambulances have been destroyed.
Attar said there also are about a dozen SARC staff being held in prison — a number that until recently included the head of the agency’s first-aid response team, Raed Al Tanil.
Tanil spent more than two months in government detention, and after his release in January and subsequent evacuation to Switzerland, it was revealed government forces intentionally broke his leg in three places as well as his hand.
“If we were not independent, they would not have taken him to jail and beaten him,” Attar said.
Canada is not giving any of its $48 million in humanitarian aid for Syria directly to SARC, but has instead partnered with the broader international Red Cross and Red Crescent movement, some of which ends up supporting Syrian Arab Red Crescent activities.
Estimates put the number of dead at about 70,000, while upwards of four million people have been forced from their homes.