Can you imagine how difficult it must be for the doctors to cope with this situation?
What Life Is Like Inside the Besieged, War-Torn Syrian City of Aleppo
"The boy didn't know what happened. He only knew he was going to school, and, then waking up with a lost leg. That's a lot of shit for a seven-year-old child," said Dr. Hamza Kataeb, 29, in a voice message sent to me via Facebook. Dr. Kataeb is the manager of a 32-bed field hospital in Eastern Aleppo, and he was covering for another doctor; he was on the 72nd hour of his shift. In the voice message, his courteous voice sometimes broke from exhaustion as he described a recent victim of Russian airstrikes. He had 20 hours left to go.
Kataeb is part of a rare group. Ninety-five percent of Aleppo's doctors have left, fled, or been detained since the start of the war, according to the nonprofitPhysicians for Human Rights. Kataeb himself has suffered from this persecution: After participating in anti-government demonstrations, he told me, he landed himself on a wanted list, and he had to abandon his medical residency. According to a recent UN report, airstrikes have destroyed the vast majority of the 33 hospitals in Aleppo, leaving field units like Kataeb's as some of the last providers of health care left in rebel-held parts of the city. Kataeb, who treats both chronic conditions and traumatic injury, says that once the Russian airstrikes started, he began treating the seriously injured in far higher numbers.
In January, these Russian airstrikes sent over 30,000 Syrians fleeing to the mostly-closed Turkish border. Camped out with little to no food, shelter, or sanitation, these refugees live in squalid conditions that aid groups struggle to address. From the other side of the border, international media document their plight.
But conditions in Aleppo and the surrounding countryside are even more dire.
Continue reading at:
What Life Is Like Inside the Besieged, War-Torn Syrian City of Aleppo | VICE | United Kingdom
What Life Is Like Inside the Besieged, War-Torn Syrian City of Aleppo
"The boy didn't know what happened. He only knew he was going to school, and, then waking up with a lost leg. That's a lot of shit for a seven-year-old child," said Dr. Hamza Kataeb, 29, in a voice message sent to me via Facebook. Dr. Kataeb is the manager of a 32-bed field hospital in Eastern Aleppo, and he was covering for another doctor; he was on the 72nd hour of his shift. In the voice message, his courteous voice sometimes broke from exhaustion as he described a recent victim of Russian airstrikes. He had 20 hours left to go.
Kataeb is part of a rare group. Ninety-five percent of Aleppo's doctors have left, fled, or been detained since the start of the war, according to the nonprofitPhysicians for Human Rights. Kataeb himself has suffered from this persecution: After participating in anti-government demonstrations, he told me, he landed himself on a wanted list, and he had to abandon his medical residency. According to a recent UN report, airstrikes have destroyed the vast majority of the 33 hospitals in Aleppo, leaving field units like Kataeb's as some of the last providers of health care left in rebel-held parts of the city. Kataeb, who treats both chronic conditions and traumatic injury, says that once the Russian airstrikes started, he began treating the seriously injured in far higher numbers.
In January, these Russian airstrikes sent over 30,000 Syrians fleeing to the mostly-closed Turkish border. Camped out with little to no food, shelter, or sanitation, these refugees live in squalid conditions that aid groups struggle to address. From the other side of the border, international media document their plight.
But conditions in Aleppo and the surrounding countryside are even more dire.
Continue reading at:
What Life Is Like Inside the Besieged, War-Torn Syrian City of Aleppo | VICE | United Kingdom
