– The switchboard, the switchboard. Do you hear me? Yasser Nini has just got into the car which is driving off at full speed. There have been reports of survivors in the ruins. – It is possible that a girl and woman are stuck in the ruins in Jalantous street, says Yasser on the walkie talkie. news’s team is in Jinderes, a rebel-held town outside Syria’s second largest city, Aleppo. Here, the White Helmets have been working around the clock to rescue people from the ruins. TOUGH JOB: Rescue workers in Syria find a dead person in the ruins. Photo: OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP Yasser jumps out of the car and rushes over to his colleagues. They are digging through a large pile of rubble. Not with an excavator, but with a simple hoe and their hands. – Do you hear anything under there, asks Yasser. – No, but locals said there are two people under here. Yasser calls in reinforcements. – The central, the central we need an excavator and equipment. Missing equipment Excavator is not available in the area, he is told. But a car arrives with an electric saw on the loading platform. Yasser cuts through several bent rebars. The rescue workers dig even deeper into the pile of rubble. HEARS CRIES: Yasir says he has not been able to help people crying for help because they lacked equipment. – Is there anyone there? Can you hear us? It’s the White Helmets, Yasser shouts into the opening he has dug. The rescue workers ask people to be quiet. They listen. But get no response. After an hour, it is established that the people under the collapsed building probably did not survive. Yasser takes off his white helmet and round glasses. He reaches for his dusty face and exhales heavily. – It is so hard to know that we could have saved people from the ruins if only we had had enough people and the right equipment. Several times I have heard people calling for help under the concrete masses without us being able to do anything. This is how the days have been for Yasser and the 3,300 rescue workers in the white helmets – ever since the earthquake hit almost a week ago. In comparison, more than 50,000 rescue workers, soldiers and police officers are on duty in neighboring Turkey. In addition, rescue teams from at least 30 countries have arrived in Turkey with state-of-the-art search equipment. Yasser marks the area around the ruins with a spray can to show that they have been searched. They then drive off to the next pile of rubble. The White Helmets became an international name during the civil war in Syria. Now they are alone in the rescue work in the rebel-controlled Idlib province. Photo: – / AFP Put on the helmet The men – and some women – in the white helmets have long and expensive experience in digging through ruins. They have been at it for 10 years. It started during the Arab Spring. People in Syria, like many other countries in the Middle East, demanded more freedom. More similarity. More democracy. President Bashar al-Assad and his family-run regime chose to meet the demands of the people with weapons. It ended in full-scale war. And with outside interference. BRUTAL BOMBING: This is how Syria has been bombed apart and together during the 11-year civil war. Photo: KAI PFAFFENBACH / Reuters In the parts of Syria where the rebel movement took control, the regime responded with extensive attacks, especially from the air. The need for help after the warplanes were gone from the sky was enormous. In 2013, the Syrian Civil Defense was formed. Those who joined were everything from firefighters and bankers to bakers. Who, when necessary, donned their white helmets and volunteered for action. – I joined the white helmets nine years ago. In that time I have seen great suffering, but this earthquake has affected even the most experienced among us, says Yasser. What has made the strongest impression after the earthquake? – I am equally put out every time we dig out small babies. It’s a sight you won’t forget. A small lifeless, cold body in his arms, says the rescue worker and shakes his head. TRAUMATIZED: The rescue workers of the White Helmets have seen a lot of suffering after the earthquake. – I can’t even describe how it feels. I have several children myself, and just the thought makes me sick. Rescue workers like Yasser have been out on a winter night before. There is hardly any rescue service in the world that has as much experience from a war zone as the White Helmets. The images of their volunteers in the middle of bombed-out buildings, searching for survivors and dead compatriots, became a common sight. This is how the auxiliary force became known all over the world. The White Helmets in Jindares in Syria on February 7. Photo: RAMI AL SAYED / AFP The Oscar-winning Netflix film “The White Helmets” helped. The following year came “The last men in Aleppo”. With their helmet cameras, they documented the consequences of the war in an area that few escaped into. They also obtained photographic evidence from what the UN says was an attack with chemical weapons. Several have proposed the civilian rescue workers for the Nobel Peace Prize for the efforts they make. But now the White Helmets have little left for the international community. ANGRY: Leaders of the White Helmets, Raed Saleh, call the UN’s aid efforts in the earthquake-affected areas shameful. Photo: ABDULAZIZ KETAZ / AFP The head of the aid force, Raed Saleh, came out hard against the UN this week. He called the UN’s intervention a disaster, and said the world organization must apologize to the Syrian people for the lack of aid. – Nobody cares about Syria. We need excavators, electric cutting tools, diesel, search dogs and rescue teams. But the UN takes three days to send us six trucks with blankets and nappies, says Yasser clearly disappointed. The UN explains the late response with damage to the roads from Turkey into Syria, and logistical challenges at their emergency aid depots on the Turkish side of the border. But the efforts of the White Helmets are also controversial – especially for the regime in Syria. They operate in rebel-held areas. Many of these areas, such as Idlib province on the Turkish border, are controlled by militant Islamists with ties to terrorist groups such as Al Qaeda. TERROR: Several of the rebel groups in Syria fighting the regime have ties to terrorist groups. Here are some of the soldiers of the Nusra Front. Photo: KHALIL ASHAWI / Reuters The regime of Bashar Al Assad believes that the White Helmets cooperate and negotiate with terrorist groups. That is why they are labeled as terrorists and as the extended arm of the West. They themselves emphasize that they are neutral. Yasser and his colleagues take a well-deserved break in the sun wall. The weather has finally improved after several days of rain, snow and freezing temperatures in the earthquake areas. He takes a bite of his shawarma, a kind of roll kebab. – We have slept two hours on average every day for the past week. We are not enough. But every time we find survivors we get an energy boost that keeps us going for many hours. The colleagues nod and smile in agreement. – Our main motivation is that if we don’t help the earthquake victims, no one else will. The excavators you see around here are not sent by aid organisations. Local businesses have lent them to us. Had it not been for local efforts, the death toll in Syria would have been much higher, says the experienced rescue worker.
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The white helmets in Syria have worked around the clock to rescue earthquake victims – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
