WUNRN
SYRIAN - WOMEN IN SYRIA &
REFUGEE WOMEN & CHILDREN DESPARATE FOR MEDICAL CARE
A
woman holds a boy with scabies at a makeshift refugee camp at the Syrian
border. (Lauren Wolfe)
By
When
I was at the Syrian border in Turkey in July, I went to a public park where I
heard 4,000 refugees were living. I was told it was not a UN-supported camp,
that these Syrians had come over the border because they’d heard there was
going to be a camp nicer than the UN one in Kilis, where most people are stuck
in tents, rather than the box-like structures known as “caravans.” They thought
they were going to a place that would be markedly better than the war they were
leaving behind.
They
were wrong.
I
could not believe my eyes when I got to that park. Blue canvas tarps and
corrugated box structures stretched into the horizon like a landfill dotted
with humans. Sun-seared heat had congealed the smell of so many people living
without toilets or showers into something indescribable.
The
first refugees I met were women. They approached with children hanging off
them, looking dirty, tired, and hot. One woman tried to hand me a boy who had
bite marks up and down his limbs. He had scabies—a highly contagious skin
condition caused by mites. The women complained of agonizing back pain caused
by unattended births and no aftercare. Men limped by, injured who knows how.
In
May, I’d visited the Syrian-American Medical
Society office in Amman. There I met a man who had one leg—the other had
been chopped off at the hip while he was in prison in Syria, he said. He
described how he’d been told to kiss a portrait of Assad and how he’d stepped
on it instead. The amputation—with no anesthesia—was his punishment.
These
are just a slim few of the serious medical conditions I saw in the diaspora
caused by the Syrian conflict. More than 2 million people are living in
subhuman conditions, affected by all manner of diseases caused by a lack of
health care, clean water, and nourishment, not to mention combat-related
injuries.
As
a colleague said to me when we were in that park, “The only thing better about
their lives here is that there are no bombs falling on their heads.”
If
there is a lack of medical care in the refugee areas, within Syria the
situation is even worse. The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry
on the Syrian Arab Republic published a report
on September 13 that unequivocally declares that there is a literal war on
hospitals and medical personnel in Syria:
“Government
forces deny medical care to those from opposition-controlled and affiliated
areas as a matter of policy. The policy is implemented through attacks on
medical units, by endangering hospitals, targeting medical personnel, and
interfering with patients receiving treatment.”
And
today, more than 50 prominent doctors around the world have released a letter
calling for full access for medical and humanitarian aid in Syria. Signatories
include Democratic Republic of Congo’s Denis
Mukwege, Harvard’s Atul Gawande, Médecins Sans Frontières’ Paul McMaster,
as well as three Nobel Prize winners.
They
write: “As doctors and health professionals we urgently demand that medical
colleagues in Syria be allowed and supported to treat patients, save lives and
alleviate suffering without the fear of attacks or reprisals.”
The
situation, they say, is ever worsening, with personnel being forced to flee or
killed: “According to one report, there were 5,000 physicians in Aleppo before
the conflict started, and only 36 remain.”
Not
only are war-related injuries going untreated within Syria, but everyday health
problems are no longer able to be attended to as the country’s infrastructure
falls apart. Anesthetic is scarce. Acute diarrhea is spreading. Victims of
sexualized violence—of which we’ve
documented many—have no outlets for help. Psychological
care, which is severely in need for survivors of war both inside and beyond
Syria, is basically nonexistent.
The
U.S. went back and forth on whether to militarily intervene in the conflict.
Now it is time to turn our attention to the assault on the basic human right to
medical care. There is little baser than allowing such suffering to go
untreated.