The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said two medical workers were killed in an attack Wednesday at an ambulance centre in Ma’aret Hurmeh, a town in Idlib province. Courtesy: Syrian American Medical Society

By James Reinl
UNITED NATIONS, Aug 16 2019 (IPS)

Medical aid groups have again blasted Russian and Syrian government forces this week for an ever-growing death toll among doctors, paramedics and other health workers in military strikes in northwestern Syria.

The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) said two medical workers were killed in an attack Wednesday at an ambulance centre in Ma’aret Hurmeh, a town in Idlib province, which has been gripped by fighting in recent weeks.

Paramedic Mohamad Hussni Mishnen, 29, and ambulance driver Fadi Alomar, 34, died in a series of six airstrikes that levelled the facility, SAMS said. A rescuer also perished in a “double tap” hit on the centre as he tried to pull Mishnen and Alomar from the rubble.

Several aid groups and the United Nations have warned of repeated strikes on Idlib’s hospitals as Syrian government forces, backed by Russian airpower, retake the last rebel bastion in the country’s eight-year civil war. 

Mufaddal Hamadeh, president of SAMS, said in a statement he was “saddened and disturbed by this terrible incident”. He paid tribute to the medics and said those responsible for such “blatant crimes” should be held accountable.

Another group, Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), has received reports of 46 attacks on  health centres since Syrian government and Russian forces launched an offensive on Idlib on April 29. The group has verified 16 of them.

“PHR’s rigorous research since the conflict began reveals that Syrian government and/or Russian government forces have committed approximately 91 percent of the attacks on health facilities in Syria,” said the group’s policy director Susannah Sirkin.

“The fact that these courageous professionals in Idlib were killed while merely doing their jobs should compel the U.N. and all parties to act now to stop the relentless bombing of civilians.”

Last month, after two-thirds of U.N. Security Council diplomats issued a protest note, U.N. secretary-general António Guterres launched an inquiry into attacks on civilian infrastructure including hospitals, clinics and schools.

The so-called Board of Inquiry will probe whether GPS coordinates of hospitals and clinics that the U.N. provides to Russia, the U.S. and Turkey to ensure the hospitals’ protection were used instead to target them.

Guterres “must conduct a rapid, public, and transparent investigation into attacks on health in the face of the deconfliction agreements”, while Security Council members “must ensure that those responsible for these unthinkable crimes are held accountable,” added Sirkin.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s government and Moscow, whose airpower has been critical to Damascus’ military gains in recent years, say they are fighting terrorists and deny targeting civilians, schools or hospitals, which can constitute war crimes.

Replying to a question from IPS, Dmitry Polyanskiy, Russia’s envoy to the U.N., said he was “disappointed” by the U.N.’s decision to launch the probe but did not commit to cooperating with investigators.

“If we were sure that this board will really try to establish the truth, then I can’t exclude this,” Polyanskiy told reporters.

“But there are a lot of doubts about this. These countries that were pushing for the establishment of this board … are not seeking to find the truth about what’s happened, they seek another tool to pressure Russia, to pressure Syria, and to just distort the actions that we take there.”

Syria’s U.N. ambassador Bashar Ja’afari has said that northwest Syria’s healthcare centres were used by “terrorist groups” rather than doctors.

According to the U.N., more than 450 people have been killed in the Idlib offensive and hundreds of thousands more displaced by fighting. Idlib’s population is about three million, most of whom have fled from other parts of war-torn Syria.

Idlib and nearby parts of the northwest were covered by a “de-escalation” deal to staunch the conflict that was struck in September by Russia and Turkey, which backs some rebel groups in the area. 

But the deal was never fully implemented after fighters refused to withdraw from a planned buffer zone. Fighting has ratcheted up again in recent weeks, sending waves of refugees spilling from conflict hotspots.

President Assad is seeking to claw back control of Syria after peaceful protests in 2011 spiralled into a brutal civil war that saw him lose much of the country to armed religious extremists and other rebels.

More than 400,000 people have died across Syria since 2011, according to World Bank figures, and almost 12 million others have been forced to flee from their homes because of the fighting, both within Syria and abroad.

This bronze sculpture outside the United Nations in New York City symbolizes the organisation’s dedication to non-violence, but this does not mean U.N. staffers are immune to the deadly impacts of conflicts around the world. Credit: David Ohmer/CC-BY-2.0

By Thalif Deen
KUWAIT CITY, Mar 31 2015 (IPS)

The deadly Syrian military conflict – now entering its fifth year – which has claimed the lives of over 200,000 mostly civilians, including women, children and aid workers, has not spared the United Nations either.

The world body has been mourning the loss of 17 of its staffers, with an additional 30 missing, probably held in detention either by the Syrian government or by rebel forces battling the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

“Unfortunately, we're no longer in an era when warring parties respected the U.N. flag and those who operated under it. As the figures show, U.N. staff are now a specific target by rebel groups.” -- Ian Richards, president of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA)
The agency most affected is the U.N. Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which has lost 14 of its staff, including five of them killed last year.

Asked if they were singled out because of their affiliation with the United Nations, Chris Gunness, UNRWA spokesperson and director of advocacy and strategic communications, told IPS the staff killed in Syria died in many different ways “caught up in this pitiless conflict”.

“We have no evidence that they were singled out and killed because they work for the U.N. But their deaths illustrate the price UNRWA staff have paid for their dedication to the humanitarian cause.”

He said they were all local Palestinian staff, while the 18,000 civilians trapped in the besieged refugee camp of Yarmouk are a mixture of Palestinian refugees and Syrians.

Many Palestinian refugees have been killed or seriously wounded, including in incidents that affected UNRWA installations.

“But UNRWA is not in a position to verify figures on the total numbers of Palestinian refugees killed,” said Gunness, on the eve of the third international conference on humanitarian aid to Syria to be hosted by the government of Kuwait.

The ongoing civil war in Syria – and the spreading conflicts in Iraq, Libya and Yemen – has made it increasingly difficult for U.N. staffers in humanitarian missions aimed at providing food, medicine and shelter to the ever-growing number of refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs).

Ian Richards, president of the Coordinating Committee of International Staff Unions and Associations (CCISUA), representing 60,000 staff working at the United Nations, told IPS, “Unfortunately, we’re no longer in an era when warring parties respected the U.N. flag and those who operated under it. As the figures show, U.N. staff are now a specific target by rebel groups.”

At the same time, he said, the U.N. has a policy of “stay and deliver” meaning that it is reluctant to pull out of conflict zones. This means it has a very real duty to protect its staff.

While security in the field is taken more seriously than before, the U.N. and its member states could do much more, Richards added.

“One example that we are keen to highlight is that the warring parties in Syria who kill or kidnap U.N. staff get their financing and support from sources located in U.N. member countries, yet this is rarely brought up.”

The treatment of local staff is also a worry, he said.

The U.N. argues that in contrast to international staff, local staff and their families were already located in the conflict zone.

However, by working for the U.N., local staff and their families are seen as a legitimate target, especially by some of the groups operating in Syria.

“Therefore the U.N. does need to do more for local staff and their families,” Richards noted.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has expressed serious concern over the continued killings of U.N. staffers in field operations.

“I am appalled by the number of humanitarian workers and peacekeepers who have been deliberately targeted in the past year, while they were trying to help people in crisis,” he said, at a recent memorial ceremony to honour fallen staff members.

In the past year, U.N. staff members were killed while relaxing over dinner in a restaurant in Kabul while two colleagues were targeted after getting off a plane in Somalia, he added.

Edited by Kanya D’Almeida

President Bashar al-Assad greets people from almost every street in the areas of Damascus that are under his control. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS.

By Karlos Zurutuza
ERBIL, Iraqi Kurdistan , Sep 3 2013 (IPS)

“Life is almost normal in the centre of Damascus,” local resident Hisham says from the predominantly Christian neighbourhood of Bab Touma. “Only the occasional noise of artillery on the outskirts reminds me that we are at war.”

The sound of artillery is now normal in Damascus. Hisham tells IPS on the phone from Damscus of the constant jams “due to the tight security measures” as well as increases in the price of food and fuel. But shops are still well stocked in his district, he says. This is an area where President Bashar al-Assad and his late father and former President Hafez al-Assad still fight for hegemony, which is depicted in street murals, on car windshields and even as souvenirs."Why has the West closed its eyes to the atrocities suffered by the Syrian people as a whole until now?” -- Khyder, a resident from the district of Mezzeh in central Damascus

“I feel like I’m living in some kind of golden cage: I go to the gym every day after work, I hang out with friends in the same places… But I know that just a mile away people struggle to survive in the worst conditions.” Like many in Damascus Hisham gave only his first name due to security concerns.

After a couple of years of war in Syria, downtown Damascus looks very much like Baghdad. The city centre is surrounded by a ring of concrete blocks guarded by tight security to protect Assad’s city strongholds from other areas that are divided, or already under control of the armed opposition.

The atmosphere is a good deal gloomier after the alleged chemical attack on Aug. 21 on the outskirts of the Syrian capital, and there have been warnings of missile strikes.

Last Saturday, U.S. President Barack Obama talked about a limited but strong operation to deter a future chemical attack. The American Congress is due to convene on Sep. 9 to discuss this.

Aram, a Bab Touma resident in his 30s, cannot hide his concern.

“I don’t support the attack and I’m not afraid of American bombs. I only fear they could pave the way to all the terrorists that are today trying to destroy our country.”

Today no one denies the fact that since the beginning of the uprising in March 2011, the Syrian opposition has been backed by numerous armed groups, many of which pay allegiance to al-Qaeda.

Salim Muslim, co-president of the Democratic Union Party, the dominant party among Syrian Kurds, claims that such alliances have already taken their toll.

“Today we cannot say that Assad is stronger, it’s simply that, after two-and-a-half years, the opposition is weaker. It is fragmented in a myriad of different branches with support from both outside and inside Syria [and is] diminishing by the day.

“The weakness of the Free Syrian Army makes it difficult for them to distance themselves from Islamic radicals because the latter have more military power.”

The situation in Saida Zainb, a working class suburb south of Damascus, hardly resembles that in Bab Touma. The area is a battleground between the government and the opposition. Many of its buildings have collapsed as a result of heavy shelling.

Hani Hosam, who openly supports the Syrian insurgents, says shops and stalls are being attacked by Assad loyalists in the district. Power cuts here are common, and supplies scarce.

Hosam doubts that there will be an intervention.

“An eventual attack will not favour any of the foreign countries’ interests. It will only bring destruction to the Syrian people,” Hosam told IPS on Skype. “The situation on the ground is very complex, and we badly need a peaceful solution.”

In Jaramana in east Damascus, another restive district, Naziha does not agree.

“The U.S. will attack because they need to fulfil their plan to control the region,” says Naziha, a Druze. She says the situation in her district is “not too bad.”

Naziha says she has supported the uprising since March 2011 but she fears the destruction an intervention would bring. Besides, she is not comfortable with Washington’s alleged support.

“We have to be careful. Even if the opposition ever manages to take control of the country, the United States will always try to control us.”

From the relatively calm district of Mezzeh in central Damascus, Khyder complains that the chemical attack has caught the attention of the international community, as al-Qaeda continues killing Kurdish civilians and committing all kinds of atrocities against Syrian Kurds.

Over the last few weeks, the predominantly Kurdish northeast is seeing fierce clashes between groups linked to al-Qaeda and Kurdish militiamen who have so far not taken sides either with Assad or the insurgents.

“Why has the West closed its eyes to the atrocities suffered by the Syrian people as a whole until now?” says Khyder. “Do Kurds, or anyone else, need to get gassed with chemicals to force an intervention?”

Khyder says it might already be “too late” for any foreign intervention. Ilya Topper, an Istanbul-based Middle East analyst, concurs.

“If there was a need for an attack it should have been conducted two years ago. At that time, the fall of Assad would not have affected the structure of Syria, the country would have maintained its Constitution and it could have become the first secular and more or less democratic republic in the so-called Arab world,” Topper tells IPS.

“Any attack meant to overthrow the regime and open the way for a military victory of the rebels will turn Syria into a theocracy ruled by clerics, similar to Iran. The same Iran that supports Assad so strongly.”