'Watching Covid-19 footage from the hospitals reminds me of Aleppo'
There are many individuals - friends and colleagues of Waad and Hamza - that you will recognise from For Sama. Here is an update from Abd, who shares his reflections from his time in Aleppo in light of the recent Coronavirus situation…
There are multiple ways to die, but the result is always the same. From inside Syria - from what’s left of areas not controlled by the terrorist regime of Al-Assad - I wish for this terrible period to end without you losing a loved one.
I’ve been following the news about the Coronavirus and how it’s affecting the whole world - the panic and fear, how everyone could lose a loved one and how the whole world is sharing the same suffering, even if the danger depends on their living situation and age.
It may be hard for you to imagine the crimes the regime committed in Syria, but it’s very similar to what Corona is doing now - separating loved ones from one another. The difference is that the Assad and Russian regimes are only attacking Syrian people, while the virus is attacking the whole world.
The warplanes fly over us in the evening, warnings come from walkie talkies to clear the streets and the markets, and move towards basements and shelters. Some seconds later, you hear a big bomb. The warplanes hit yet another civilian area. The first responders, along with a group of civilians, move quickly towards the hit site to save whoever they can. The lucky ones from the injured people are the ones that get to the hospital first, because as a couple of minutes pass, the hospital wards are drawn completely with injured people. The race with time begins to save as many people as possible. The ER team works relentlessly for long hours after the massacre; strained eyes, bloodied hands, and tired faces. Nothing is heard except for medical devices and procedures’ names as well as the screams of the injureds’ families. Some people lose their lives before reaching the hospital because it can take the civil defense too much time to remove people from under the rubble of their houses.
On the 18th of November and due to the heavy airstrikes on the city, as well as the shelling particularly on the hospitals, only one hospital remained taking care of the injured. All the medical staffers gathered in that hospital. I was passing a friend in the ER corridor and he shouted at me. I felt like he had someone injured in the hospital and he told me his mother had died. I told him may she rest in peace and kept going. Even though I’m not a medical staffer, I was hoping to lend a hand and help to save people. There was no time to give condolences to my friend at that moment. It’s very hard to lose someone we love but what’s even harder is watching someone we love die without being able to help them at all.
As I’m watching the footage from the hospitals in the countries that have the most cases of Coronavirus, it reminds me of what was happening in Aleppo years ago. The doctors’ faces that have medical mask scars carved into them reminds me of the medical staffers’ faces as they’re trying to save lives after every massacre. The news about cases among the medical staffers reminds me of all the doctors, first responders, and civil defense members that we lost because the airstrikes targeted them while they were trying to save lives.
In the last days of the siege in Aleppo, some friends created a WhatsApp group and it was named, “The same fate holders,” because we were in the same city and we were going to share the same fate that is going to hit the city. We lost some of the friends who were in the group due to the airstrikes or the snipers’ bullets from the regime forces. Today, everyone is in “The same fate holders” because we’re all humans, we’re all being attacked by a virus, we’re all watching social media and following the news closely, and we’re all wishing for the moment that we hear a vaccine or medicine is found. Someday, we still hope to hear the international community will make a stand and take action to stop the regime’s crimes; to help us reach our dreams as free people.
My friends, I wish for you to stay safe and that the virus doesn’t find its way to you. I look forward to the day that Social media and TV programs will announce the virus’s defeat. Everyone on this planet deserves to live safely without any virus, and the people of Syria deserve to live safely without the dictator and criminal regime over them.
Abd