War

The Human Rights Council this afternoon held a panel discussion on the importance of the promotion and protection of civil society space. The discussion included a video message from Ban Ki-Moon, United Nations Secretary-General, and a statement from the Secretary-General of the United Nations and the Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights.

Washington, D.C. – The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS) condemned the attack on a field hospital in Atmeh, Syria, supported by the Orient Foundation. A car bomb went off outside of the facility Sunday morning, February 23, 2014. The most recent reports from the hospital list 16 dead, including four medical staff and a number of children, additionally, the explosion left 65 wounded.

It was the third week of an uprising in Syria that would eventually evolve into a brutal civil war and already the wounded were showing up at the hospital in the Damascus suburb where 29-year-old Ahmed was doing rotations during his medical residency. Ahmed, who asked that only one part of his name be published because he is afraid of repercussions from Syria’s security agencies, had only just started examining a young man with bruises and a deep puncture wound on his right side when two armed security officials burst into the examining room barking questions.

Central African Republic descended into unprecedented chaos in December. The local Red Cross team traverses the city on a daily basis collecting bodies. After a recent spike in the intercommunal violence, the team collected 104 bodies in two days.

Adnan Ismail worked as a doctor in a Syrian government hospital. But civil war led him to a farm field where he and friends labored nights in secret to build a makeshift rebel-run clinic. For a year, Dr. Ismail helped dig walls and stairs to fashion an underground bunker that was eventually equipped for surgery, he said. Dr. Adnan Ismail led a secret life tending to Syrian rebels and civilians hurt by government forces.