Rescue Teams in Idlib Province Lack Resources, Equipment

Abdallah Kleido

(Kfar Nabel and Maarat al-Nu’man, Syria) – In a cave on the opposite side of the valley from the town of Kfar Nabel, three middle-aged men spend most of their days underground, afraid of air strikes. One of these men is 55-year-old retired police officer Ali al-Basheer. He raises his finger toward the fighter jets circling the sky because of the battles at the Wadi Dayf military camp, where regime forces are centred, around 11 kilometres east of Kfar Nabel.

“I do not want to die under rubble – I want to die a normal death,” said Basheer, despite the fact that the last air raid that targeted Kfar Nabel was on December 21, 2013, which killed three members of the same family.

Abu Omar, a 45-year-old grocer, refuses to leave his home even though he knows the danger of staying should the shelling resume.

“If a shell lands on my house I pray to God that he takes my soul and I am not buried under the rubble,” he said.

All the cities and towns in the south of Idlib province have suffered from the same problem. After every air raid, residents make their way to the targeted area to collect the dead and put out the fires. The biggest challenge, however, is removing the wounded people still trapped under the rubble.

“When fighter jets shelled the main market on August 28, 2012, I ran to the site and helped one of the wounded who died on his way to the hospital,” said Abdel Karim Haj Hameido, 31, an employee of the Union of Revolutionary Bureaus, a humanitarian relief organization.

The need for effective rescue led to the establishment of a civil defence team in Kfar Nabel in September 2013 under the authority of the Civil Defense Centre for the region west of Maarat al-Nu’man, which in turn is under the administrative control of the anti-government Central Office for Civil Defence in the province of Idlib.

Civil defense teams in the southern parts of Idlib province face obstacles that prevent them from carrying out their work to the satisfaction of residents and the teams themselves. They do not have any heavy equipment to clear out rubble, nor do they have fire trucks, ambulances, or regular cars for transportation. They only have light equipment at their disposal, such as picks, saws, personal medical supplies, and small, portable fire extinguishers.

“One of the biggest challenges we face during our rescue operations is that our teams aren’t able to get to the sites quickly enough due to a lack of vehicles,” said Raed Saleh, the director of Idlib’s civil defence. “All we have in all our centres is two cars donated by the National Opposition Coalition’s Assistance Coordination Unit. Despite this, we conducted 15 rescue operations in various areas in the southern parts of Idlib province.”

A member of Kfar Nabel’s civil defence team who wished to remain anonymous confirmed this situation, saying that he was unable to save some people because he arrived too late.

“When planes bombed two houses close to the elementary school on December 1, 2013, my team and I were in our centre and did not have a way to get to the location. Some of them got there by motorbike, but we were too late,” he added.

The director of the Kfar Nabel’s local council, Adnan al-Qasem, said that the council was aiming to establish an independent civil defence team.

Raed Saleh, on the other hand, insists on maintaining the ties between Kfar Nabel’s team and the central administration of Idlib’s civil defence.

“We have 15 central offices which field offices, such as Kfar Nabel’s, report to. Any support to Idlib’s civil defence, whether from the Assistance Coordination Unit or any other body, goes through the council for Idlib province, which appointed me to oversee this project,” he said.

According to Saleh, these centres have an organizational structure that follows administrative divisions of the local councils and all the members of the civil defence teams are volunteers. A total of 175 people were trained on basic search and rescue operations in and outside of Syria, but still require more advanced training.

But despite the efforts described by Saleh, some people voiced their suspicions of the civil defence teams’ effectiveness.

“Do we really have a civil defence team? I witnessed many bombings and rescues, but never saw any civil defence members,” said Ussama al-Warda, 29, a tailor from Maarat al-Nu’man.

Yasser, 25, a barber from Kfar Nabel, shares Ussama’s questions.

“I think there is a civil defence team, but where is it? What has it done?” he asked.

“We did not have uniforms that identified us,” said Abdallah Tawil, the director of Maarar al-Nu’man’s civil defence office. “That’s why people thought we did not participate in any rescue missions. The truth is we conducted many with just the modest equipment we have,” he added.

“The office was established very recently, and since then we have conducted two rescue missions. When the planes shelled two locations in the city [on December 1 and 15, 2013], we rushed to the sites, but due to logistical reasons we were late to the scene. We still did our job though,” said Madi al-Akel, 32, a member of Kfar Nabel’s civil defence team.

The civil defence teams do not work with specific hospitals. When a site is hit, the wounded are transported to the nearest one. “It is natural that the wounded are taken to nearby hospitals. We have limited coordination with some hospitals to which we send the wounded,” said Saleh.

“We only conduct rescue operations. How are we supposed to transport the wounded to hospitals if we don’t even have vehicles to take us to the location of the bombings? We just rescue them and put them in civilian cars which take them to the nearest hospital,” added al-Akel.

Retired police officer Ahmad al-Basheer is not optimistic. “With the civil defence or without it, I am not moving an inch from this cave. What’s the use of civil defence that I haven’t even seen and don’t think I will unless my roof collapses over my head?” he wondered.

Abu Omar the grocer disagrees. “If my roof fell over my head I might wish for death, but if it collapsed over my children I would want someone to rescue them. Kfar Nabel’s civil defence team needs to be effective,” he said.