Monday, February 15, 2016

Heroes in Syria


In Syria, especially in Aleoppo, which had about 2,000,000 people has come under attack, with thousands of people killed.  They have been bombed by the Syria and Russian's air force, Isis is in there and Al-Qaida also are there.  Then you also have the freedom fighters against the Syria.  Mostly, this war is mostly a war with different factions, you know, the religion of peace.
Today, another bad bombing took place. From Fox News:  Russian warplanes are being blamed for carrying out what is being called a "deliberate attack" on two makeshift hospitals and a school in northern Syria Monday that killed nearly 50 people, according to the United Nations.
Doctors Without Borders -- also known by its French acronym MSF -- said in a statement that the hospital in the town of Maaret al-Numan was hit four times in at least two attacks that were minutes apart.
"This appears to be a deliberate attack on a health structure, and we condemn this attack in the strongest possible terms," said Massimiliano Rebaudengo, MSF's mission chief. "The destruction of the hospital leavesthe local population of around 40,000 people without access to medical services in an active zone of conflict."
In the neighboring Aleppo province, two missiles struck a children's hospital in the town of Azaz, killing at least five people, including pregnant women and children, and wounding dozens, the chief liaison officer at the Syrian Civil defense said.  http://www.foxnews.com/world/2016/02/15/syria-airstrike-levels-doctors-without-borders-backed-clinic.html?intcmp=hplnws
You would there would be no fire and rescue servie to deal with all these bombings, that frequently collapse buildings, trapping people for days.
Well, you would be wrong.
From Medium.com:  In June this year, I traveled to rebel-held Aleppo, along with a photographer, Sebastiano Tomada, and Salem Rizek, our guide to report this story. Because of the threat of kidnapping by extremist and criminal groups, we were escorted from the Turkish border by members of Liwa al Tauheed, a powerful rebel group in Aleppo that is known for cooperating with Western journalists. The road, which winds through the rebel heartlands north of the city, only took a couple of hours but its last stretch was particularly tense. The regime has nearly encircled the city and is using artillery and airstrikes against the few remaining rebel supply lines...
And yet, even in the midst of so much death and despair, we found Syrians who were risking their lives to help others. We spent eight days in the city, nearly all of it in the company of the Hanano Civil Defense Team that I profile in my story. Aleppo is constantly being hit by airstrikes, and shadowing the team meant rushing with them to the site of each blast — or, as I detail in the video below, almost being hit by a bomb ourselves. Sometimes it felt like there was no escape from the relentless bombardment. But their courage and resilience — they had been doing this for over a year — inspired us to stick with them. And it felt important to tell the story of Syrians who hadn’t resorted to violence in their resistance to the regime.
https://medium.com/inside-matter/the-making-of-whoever-saves-a-life-5201ff182d#.12lp1yln6
The fire/rescue are volunteers who mostly live at a fire station, which was bombed 1 time and moved to a school.  The use 1 truck to respond to the bombings, injuries, fires and everything else.
What is impressive is that they have responded to more building collapses and rescue more people than any firefighter in the United States.  They deal with violent death just about everyday and many of the bodies they have to recovered are flattened or blown up, a very gross site.  When I was a volunteer firefighter and EMT, I saw some violent death from car accidents but nothing like they see.
So, in all and destruction in the war in Syria and the City of Aleppo, there are real heroes who save lives and face extreme danger themselves.
According to the story, they were arrested by a extremist muslim group but they were freed and they are now in Turkey, hopefully for some real R&R.

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