Red Crescent under Fire from Both Sides of the Civil War

By Karam Mansour

 Note: Names were changed for the safety of the interviewees.

(Eastern Ghouta, Syria) – Um Rafeef was relieved after the Red Crescent helped her leave the besieged area of Moadamyeh outside Damascus for a safe suburb of the capital in October.

“I am lucky. Tonight there won’t be thousands of rockets falling on our heads,” she said. “But I am sad as well because I left my home, which I haven’t spent a single night away from in 15 years. If it weren’t for the Red Crescent, we would have died either from hunger or from the shelling,” she added.

Refugees from Moadamyeh left destroyed houses behind them in eastern Ghouta, part of the province of Damascus, following a siege that lasted over a year. Red Crescent volunteers welcomed them with food and water.

“The evacuation process took around four hours,” said Red Crescent volunteer Iman Shadoud, 26. “It stopped periodically because of gunfire from an unknown source. In the end, we were able to evacuate 1,500 citizens, mostly women. The males were either young children or elderly. According to the residents, the young men preferred to die under the bombs than be arrested by the regime,” she added.

At the start of the popular protests around three years ago, the work of the Red Crescent in Ghouta was limited to aiding the wounded during peaceful demonstrations and providing adequately equipped medical stations. When the situation evolved, Ghouta came entirely under siege. People, goods, medical supplies and food, including infant formula, were prevented from moving in or out. Water and electricity all but disappeared, as well as health, education, and municipal services such as rubbish collection.

The humanitarian situation deteriorated to the point of crisis, as a UNICEF report put it, leading the Red Crescent branch in eastern Ghouta to formulate an emergency relief plan.

“We, who were under siege, coordinated with the Red Crescent branches in the Damascus countryside that had approval from the regime security forces to bring in food supplies,” said Mohammad al-Abyad, a Red Crescent volunteer in Ghouta.

“We were also preparing the roads in coordination with opposition-allied local coordination committees. About a year ago, the Syrian government banned these supplies,” he added. “We work under the name of the Red Crescent in Ghouta but there is no support or coordination with the head office of the organisation. Now, all the Red Crescent branches in Ghouta are not working with the exception of the Jaramana branch which is under regime control.”

Red Crescent volunteers face many obstacles; 31 paramedics have been killed to date. Operations coordinator Ameen Taher identifies arbitrary detentions at checkpoints as the main hindrance to their work, with teams held for hours despite having all the necessary security clearances.

“Many times, the government would not grant us clearance to go in, and accuses us indirectly of helping those who carry weapons against the Syrian state. Often, the team leader is summoned for questioning after any operation carried out by the Red Crescent,” he added.

According to Taher, large amounts of supplies are confiscated at checkpoints before his teams are allowed to pass through.

Red Crescent volunteers try their utmost to remain neutral in the face of the raging conflict. They raise the crescent symbol over their centres and vehicles in order to avoid being shelled.

Weapons are banned from the medical stations they oversee. The principal of neutrality that the organisation adopts allows it to stand in the middle ground between the regime and the opposition.

But they have also been accused by the opposition of having ties to the regime.

The organisation is represented in government by a minister of state for the affairs of the Red Crescent, Joseph Soueid, and Abdel Rahman al-Attar, the head of the organisation, is considered to be close to the regime.

In November, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement awarded it a peace prize. This raised the ire of some in the opposition, because Attar received the prize on behalf of the Syrian Red Crescent.

Things were different at the start of the uprising, when administering first aid to the protestors was a charge that could land volunteers in prison. With the militarisation of the revolution, tending to armed fighters was one of the most severe accusations Red Crescent volunteers could face.

According to the volunteers, the harassment did not only come from regime forces. On many occasions, opposition forces accused the teams of being biased towards the regime, arresting them as if they were working for the government. Red Crescent ambulances transporting the wounded from both sides were targeted.

For these reasons, a civilian campaign was launched in solidarity with the Syrian Red Crescent to raise awareness of the 15 Red Crescent prisoners held by the various warring factions.

Almost nothing is known about the circumstances of their arrests or that of the deaths of eight volunteers killed while performing their duties in the Damascus countryside.

“The killing and the arrests would come from all sides, so we started this campaign partly to acknowledge the work of the volunteers,” said paramedic Jameel Awdeh. “In Syria today we are in need of those who can give humanitarian services in a neutral manner for all those affected without discrimination based on political ideology.”

In light of the ongoing war in the country, Red Crescent volunteers hope they can encourage Syrians to overcome their differences and their ideologies and unite in brotherhood and humanity. Most of the time, however, they risk becoming victims themselves.