Amal Al-Sibai
Saudi Gazette
JEDDAH — The suffering of the Syrian people is continuing unchecked. About 15 months back, the first protest erupted in Deraa when families took to the streets because school boys were beaten by army officers for writing on the walls the popular Arab Spring slogan: the people want the fall of the regime!
Since then, innocent men, women, and children continue to fall lifeless to the ground, their blood on the hands of the regime’s snipers, military tanks, missiles, and killer gangs.
Because we share the bond of Islam with our brethren in Syria and empathize with their suffering, truck loads of food and medical aid have been delivered to the Syrian borders. Teams of Saudi doctors and journalists have traveled to the refugee camps in Lebanon and Jordan to help ease the families’ pain.
Saudi journalist Taleb Bin Mahfouz from our sister publication Okaz visited the Syrian refugee camps in Lebanon and returned to Jeddah with many horrific tales to tell.
“I met six sisters, with ages between 9 and 14 who had lost their parents in the small Syrian village where they lived. Armed loyalists of Al-Assad raped the sisters, not even sparing the youngest child. Fearing a recurrence of this horrific nightmare, they fled to Lebanon where they currently camp in the refugee shelters. The youngest girl became pregnant and underwent an abortion and after such a horrendous ordeal she is now emotionally shattered,” said Bin Mahfouz.
“Another family that escaped from the stricken city of Homs recalled how militia men from the regime broke into their home and raped the mother of four daughters in front of her husband and her brother. She aborted the pregnancy that resulted from the ugly crime and the family now dreams of the day when they can forget their pain and return to their homes in Homs, which they labeled as the capital city of the revolution,” added Bin Mahfouz.
Several international and Saudi humanitarian organizations are providing shelters, adequate meals, medical care, psychological counseling, and other forms of support to the Syrian refugees, but it is a drop in the bucket. Some humanitarian aid organizations have banded together to offer some relief to the Syrian refugees.
The International Foundation for Construction and Development has succeeded in opening and operating an intensive care unit in the governmental general hospital in Tripoli, Lebanon to treat the wounded refugees in critical conditions. Volunteer surgeons from Doctors without Borders, a global organization, operated on many refugees who suffered severe burn wounds, training local doctors to perform similar operations.
“Organizations affiliated with the Muslim World League are providing supplies of medical equipment, medicines, and rehabilitative aids for those who have lost limbs or endured other physical disabilities. A newborn intensive care unit was also set up in the region,” said Abdul Kareem Al-Musa, director of Islamic International Relief Commission’s Lebanon branch.
The people trapped in cities like Homs and Hola are begging the international community to take concrete action to halt the violence and massacres perpetrated by the Syrian army against children.
“The International Islamic Relief Organization of Saudi Arabia has installed camps supplied with basic necessities and electricity for 10 families and will be fully responsible for their nutritional needs as well. The organization has also secured 200 rental furnished accommodation units in Jordan for the homeless Syrian refugees,” said Dr. Adnan Basha, secretary general of IIROSA.
A budget of SR10 million has been allocated by IIROSA for healthcare, surgeries, accommodation, and nutritional and medical supplies for the Syrian refugees in both Lebanon and Jordan. According to Basha, such humanitarian services will continue to be offered until the matter of displacement, forced immigration, and hunger is lifted.
