Dear Deeply Readers,
Welcome to the archives of Syria Deeply. While we paused regular publication of the site on May 15, 2018, and transitioned some of our coverage to Peacebuilding Deeply, we are happy to serve as an ongoing public resource on the Syrian conflict. We hope you’ll enjoy the reporting and analysis that was produced by our dedicated community of editors contributors.
We continue to produce events and special projects while we explore where the on-site journalism goes next. If you’d like to reach us with feedback or ideas for collaboration you can do so at [email protected].
Exploring Syria’s healthcare crisis, including emerging diseases, chronic illnesses, the disintegrating state of healthcare facilities and the declining number of medical professionals.
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In this installment of our series of diaries from Syrian care providers, Abdullah, a psychosocial community health worker with a local partner of the International Rescue Committee in Idlib, discusses his work helping families cope with depression and other mental health issues that are rampant across the city.
DR. Ahmad Tarakji President, Syrian American Medical Society
E.U. states must take action over putting an end to violence against civilians in East Ghouta by holding the perpetrators accountable and refusing to fund reconstruction efforts until the attacks stop, says SAMS president Dr. Ahmad Tarakji.
Hashem Osseiran
Alessandria Masi Managing Editor, Syria Deeply
Kim Bode
In the latest installment of our Deeply Talks, Dr. Annie Sparrow, assistant professor at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, and Dr. Mohamad Katoub, advocacy manager for the Syrian American Medical Society, discuss the deteriorating healthcare situation in Eastern Ghouta.
Abdulkarim Ekzayez Syrian Medical Doctor and an Epidemiologist
There is reason to suspect health facilities are being deliberately targeted in eastern Ghouta in a bid to weaken the resilience of the community and make it more amenable to evacuation, writes Syrian doctor and fellow at Chatham House, Abdulkarim Ekzayez.
The Syrian government has targeted a number of hospitals and medical clinics in East Ghouta recently, complicating attempts to provide life-saving care to the nearly 400,000 people trapped under bombardment, writes journalist Areeb Ullah.
Fadi Al Dairi Syria Country Director, Hand in Hand
After the first airstrike hit near the hospital, those inside knew they would soon be targeted, writes Fadi Al Dairi, the Syria country director for Hand in Hand. The next 41 minutes were ones of fear.
Amid unprecedented pressures on healthcare facilities in Eastern Ghouta, and the repeated failure to deliver life-saving aid, time is running out to improve the humanitarian situation and mitigate misery in the Damascus suburb, says medical researcher Dr. Annie Sparrow.
With Syria’s healthcare system crippled by conflict, women and children are dying from treatable illnesses. One doctor and his team are providing them safe, dedicated medical care by building hospitals below ground, out of the reach of airstrikes.
Years of war and attacks on healthcare have led to a severe lack of doctors in Syria. Amid ongoing fighting and tightening sieges, Syrian medical school students struggle to pass their classes and get practical training, reports Al-Fanar Media.
In the first in our series of diary entries from Syrian doctors, Mahmoud Mustafa, director of the Independent Doctors Association, explains how he went from being an eye surgeon in Aleppo to providing emergency care amid attacks, sporadic aid access and exhaustion.
Neither the Syrian war nor the severe restrictions of exile in Lebanon could keep Dr. Ibrahim al-Masri from his work. The Syrian doctor, now resettled in Canada, tells his story of fighting for the rights and health of refugees.
Zaher Sahloul, a physician with the Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), discusses the state of mental healthcare in Syria, the psychological impact of the conflict and what initiatives must be taken to address the country’s mental health crisis.
Syria Deeply has gathered data and mapped major attacks on Syrian health facilities that provided maternity, pediatric and obstetrics and gynecology services.
For many Syrian women, destruction of the country’s medical system means access to health facilities can be determined by location. But as hospitals and clinics continue to come under attack, civil society organizations are trying to fill the gap in women’s healthcare.
At least 32 children in the besieged Houla region are suffering from an inherited blood disorder that requires frequent transfusions. Though fatality rates for thalassemia are not exceptionally high, the absence of supplies and blood banks has made it life-threatening.
The economic strain of Syria’s six-year civil war has encouraged hidden forms of child labor, as an increasing number of youngsters take up work in dim factory buildings, dusty workshops and in the dingy backrooms of Damascene cafes.
Medical workers are monitoring attacks on healthcare facilities in Syria. Their aim is to provide data that can be used by international agencies to enforce legal protections and hold the perpetrators accountable for breaches of international law.
Attacks on Syrian healthcare facilities and medical workers have taken a “catastrophic toll on the health and well-being of the Syrian population,” according to researchers who compared attacks on healthcare facilities in 23 countries in conflict in 2016.
The Trump administration has cut funding to the UNFPA, which provides health services to Syrian refugees in Jordan. For Sultana, that could mean an end to vital treatment for PTSD.
Rachel Thompson Research Associate, Centre on Global Health Security at Chatham House
Chatham House research associate Rachel Thompson explores the challenges facing the international community when it comes to holding those responsible for the “weaponization of health” in Syria responsible for their actions.
Dr. Abdel Hay Tennari, who treated at least 22 critical victims from the alleged toxic gas attack in Khan Sheikhoun, said his patients’ symptoms were consistent with Sarin gas and the field hospital where he works has run out of the antidote.
Samer Jabbour, a researcher on the report by the Lancet Commission and American University of Beirut on the weaponization of healthcare in Syria, discusses the systematic attacks on healthcare facilities and medical personnel throughout the country.
Misty Buswell Director of Media, Communications and Advocacy, Middle East for Save the Children
The Syrian war will permanently damage a generation if the mental health needs of children are not immediately addressed, writes Save the Children’s regional advocacy, media and communications director Misty Buswell.
At least 30,000 Syrians have lost limbs in the war, according to conservative estimates. Among them is Husam al-Zeno who escaped Eastern Ghouta using prosthetic legs made for a young girl and now manages an aid distribution center for fellow refugees in Turkey.
Annie Sparrow Deputy Director of the Human Rights Program, Icahn School of Medicine
The World Health Organization has become complicit in war crimes by remaining silent on the destruction of Syria’s healthcare infrastructure by the Syrian government and its allies, writes medical researcher Dr. Annie Sparrow.
Some of the leading experts on health in Syria discuss the dire situation in eastern Aleppo and what to expect now that the city has fallen under government control.
Amid the rubble in the Damascus suburbs, a wheelchair race sheds light on the growing number of people with lifelong injuries caused by the conflict in Syria, and survivors’ attempts to reengage with a war-ravaged community.
In the first installment of our Q&A series on infectious diseases in Syria, medical researcher Dr. Annie Sparrow discusses Zika, TB, meningitis and other illnesses that have emerged since the conflict began, and how failure to treat these diseases will have a lasting effect on the population.
Cases of meningitis and malnutrition-related growth deficiencies are increasing in the besieged town of Madaya, where humanitarian aid deliveries are sporadic and insufficient.
An estimated 90 people are reportedly trapped in the basement of the M2 hospital on the eastern side of Aleppo, and the M10 hospital is “out of commission” after the latest violence in Syria’s largest city.
In the second installment of our “Experts to Watch” series, meet seven doctors and researchers doing incredible work on public health in Syria.
In the second installment of our series on chronic illnesses in Syria, we explore the diabetes crisis across the war-torn country and the constant struggle to obtain the insulin needed to treat the disease.
Amid the blame game of warring parties in Aleppo, the healthcare system in Syria’s largest city is dying a slow and excruciating death.
As Aleppo comes under siege by Syrian government forces, Syria Deeply goes inside one of the last remaining proper hospitals in the eastern opposition-held areas of the city.
In the first installment of our series on chronic illnesses in Syria, we explore how the war has left millions of Syrians unable to manage their conditions and led to severe complications and untold unnecessary deaths.
The only way to reinstate peace and stability in Syria is to document ongoing crimes in the hopes that those responsible will some day be brought to justice, according to a doctor working with Physicians for Human Rights along the Turkish border.
Overnight airstrikes reportedly carried out by the Russian air force hit civilian targets in rebel-held Idlib city in northwestern Syria, killing more than 60 civilians and putting two hospitals out of service.
In Syria and its neighboring countries, an underground network of organ traders has sprung up, preying on the thousands affected by the five-year-long war and offering them desperately needed cash for nonessential organs.
Backstreet doctors in the border town of Reyhanli and elsewhere in southern Turkey are caring for injured rebel fighters. Funded by armed opposition groups, the network of underground hospitals is patching up militants and sending them back to fight.
For the past four years, a small team of dedicated medical professionals has held together a skeletal network of bombed out and underground hospitals across opposition-held Aleppo, providing life-saving treatment to the civilians caught in Syria’s deadly war.
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