A few days after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, I received an unusual note on Twitter. A Syrian man introduced himself as Mustafa Kayyali.
“We are a group of medical doctors with specialization in paramedics, trauma, and war medicine,” Mustafa wrote. “We have suffered from the aggression of Russian forces for the last 8 years, and we trained people to deal with urgent cases, and how to save their lives. We would like to help Ukraine and its people.” He made it clear Syrian doctors had unique experience with treating victims of chemical weapons attacks. Chemical weapons have been used repeatedly against civilians in Syria by the dictator Bashar al-Assad’s army and the Russian forces that support him.
I passed Mustafa’s message to my contacts. Two weeks later I was informed that the first training of Syrian doctors for Ukrainian medics had been conducted. More followed, and as of now, several thousand Ukrainian doctors have been trained by Syrian medical professionals on how to deal with patients who suffered from the use of chemical and biological weapons. The training sessions are conducted by Dr Abdullah Abdulaziz Alhaji, MD, a specialist in general surgery. He is the president of the Academy of Health Sciences, established in 2011 after the start of war in Syria to provide medical training to local doctors and civilians. It currently runs programs in paramedics, nursing and physical therapy.
“When the Syrian regime attacked our population, we suffered from the reduction of medical staff. Many doctors were arrested, killed or fled Syria. We established our Academy with short courses lasting 15 days, to provide training on trauma first response. There were no paramedics or emergency specialists before in Syria,” Dr Alhaji explains. “With time, Assad’s war machine became more…
Source : time
