The targeting of rescue workers nominated for the Nobel Prize is a reminder of the brutality of Syria’s civil war

Newsbeat

When the fighter jets drop the bombs, the White Helmets move in. The nearly 3,000-strong volunteer rescue group from Syria, formally known as the Syrian Civil Defense, is credited with saving over 60,000 people since it started operating in 2012. Their work, removing people from under the rubble of barrel bombs, spans across the country, including in dangerous areas such as Idlib and Aleppo. The group’s efforts have received global recognition, with its nomination for the Nobel Peace Prize in August, and awarding of the prestigious Right Livelihood Award in September. Yet, the White Helmets’ humanitarian work and recognition has also made it a target. On Friday (Sept. 23), three out of the group’s four centers in Aleppo were destroyed. The group posted photos on Twitter showing damaged buildings and destroyed cars. More than 130 members of the White Helmets have been killed while undertaking rescue missions. The group consists of former bakers, tailors, doctors, and carpenters, who banded together after the Syrian civil war started in 2011. Their objective was to rescue as many people as possible, drawing inspiration from a verse in the Quran that reads, “To save a life is to save all of humanity.” The group’s daring rescue missions, captured in a recent Netflix documentary, has put a face to the brutality of Syria’s civil war. “To be honest, yes, there’s a lot of pressure in our work,” Raed Al Saleh, the head of the group, told Quartz. “The thing that I don’t think people can understand is that feeling, that moment when you pull someone from under the rubble and you find them alive. In that moment, you forget everything else. You forget the stress, you forget the pressure, you forget the tension.” Al Saleh was speaking at a forum in New York on Friday, a few hours after his colleagues in Aleppo were shelled. In his remarks, he painted a picture of a city—and a country—plagued by war, and of children, mothers, and fathers constantly negotiating with the fear of death and famine. Hundreds of thousands of people have been killed in Syria since the beginning of the war, and 4.8 million others have fled the country, according to the UN office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs. In Aleppo, one of the world’s oldest continuously inhabited cities, more than 250,000 people are now under siege in the rebel-controlled eastern part, trying to survive without water or basic amenities. Al Saleh spoke of the dangerous and dreadful conditions his team faces on a daily basis. Despite the group’s usage of marked vehicles and white helmets to make them easily identifiable, they have been repeatedly targeted. This has especially happened through what is known as the “double-tap” strikes, where warplanes and helicopters circle back to drop bombs on volunteers carrying out rescue operations. This, Al Saleh said, has forced them to smear vehicles with mud, remove all marks, and even build hospitals underground so that they aren’t bombarded. Yet in Syria’s war, nothing is sacred anymore: During the Friday airstrike, one of the group’s rescue centers featured in the Netflix documentary was destroyed. The dwindling number of doctors and the scarcity of hospital equipment have also created a humanitarian disaster. Mahmoud Mustafa, an ophthalmologist and a native of Aleppo, founded a doctor’s association that provides life-saving care to medical facilities in the besieged city. “Doctors are target number one,” Mustafa said, adding that 850 medical personnel have been killed in the country since the war began. “I have lost any glimmer of hope,” he said. “What will happen within a month or two? I don’t want to imagine.”