War Doctor by David Nott

Author:David Nott
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan UK

9

Sniper City

By the time I arrived, in August 2013, the healthcare system of east Aleppo had been forced into the shadows. As I had seen in other countries in crisis, many of the more senior doctors and surgeons had already left – as many as 95 per cent of Aleppo’s physicians had seen which way the wind was blowing and found a route out. Those who remained were brave and committed, but there were very few of them. In the face of the regime’s targeting of healthcare workers and those seeking medical help, one of these courageous doctors had set up a network of secret hospitals to treat people injured in the war.

To escape detection by the regime, he adopted the code-name ‘Dr White’, while his like-minded colleague, Noor, gave the group its name – Light of Life; noor in Arabic means light. They recruited several medical students who shared their sympathies with the uprising against Assad, and began carrying out covert medical procedures as well as giving lectures in the basic principles of emergency trauma work. Volunteers would bring wounded protesters to the safe houses, and then leave before Dr White took over, to preserve his anonymity.

But the care provided was limited, and the risks considerable. Noor himself was kidnapped and later killed, and three of Dr White’s students were abducted by the security forces and murdered. The Light of Life was extinguished, and Dr White was obliged to change his name again, and become Dr Abdulaziz.

By this point, some of the now-expatriate Syrian surgeons and doctors had begun to mobilize, setting up charities to try to improve the situation on the ground. My friend and colleague Mounir Hakimi’s Syria Relief was one of them. Aid and ambulances were making their way into Syria from Turkey, but the approach was scattergun and chaotic. Supplies would arrive at a clinic that had just received a truckload of medicine, while other facilities were completely overlooked.

A more co-ordinated response was urgently needed and so Dr Abdulaziz set up the Aleppo City Medical Council (ACMC). The plan was to establish a formal network of clinics across the rebel-held eastern half of the city. These clinics were also assigned code names, which initially ran sequentially from M1 to M8, but later hospitals were given random numbers to disguise how many there really were. The subterfuge did not stop there – ambulances and other medical vehicles carried no sirens, insignia or logos, and at night drove with their headlights off. Anything that looked like help for the injured was, according to the regime, aiding the rebels and so in their eyes a legitimate target.

Our first stop on arriving in Aleppo was one of these hospitals, M10, where we were greeted by the surgeon in charge, who would become a great friend. Dr Abu Mohammadain was in his late thirties, a urologist by training – and a very good one. The other doctors there were more junior, and needed a lot of help to deal with the number of casualties with gunshot wounds.

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