Entering the conflict-damaged neighborhood of Duma in rural Damascus.
A lady’s shoe lies in the rubble in Aleppo’s Old Town area. Brutalized by twelve years of war and recent earthquakes, the Old Town of Aleppo still bears the deep scars of destruction. Much of Aleppo’s Old Town today remains uninhabitable.
Faten El Masri awaits treatment at the Nour Foundation-managed Primary Healthcare Center in Yarmouk, rural Damascus, in June 2023. Faten, who lives in one of the heaviest-shelled neighborhoods on the outskirts of Damascus, suffers from trauma-related health issues and receives psychological counseling at the Nour facility in Yarmouk.
.Brutalized by twelve years of war and recent earthquakes, the Old Town of Aleppo still bears the deep scars of destruction.
As the pro-democracy demonstrations erupted in March of 2011 and quickly spread throughout the entire country, so did the brutal government crackdown. Within months, armed non-state groups formed into powerful opposition militias, and civil war took full hold. These groups, many with foreign backing, sent money, weapons, and militants from overseas. As the chaos deepened, so did the complexity of the warring parties. Extremist jihadist organizations, such as the Islamic State (IS) group and al-Qaeda, splintered the country yet further.
A sea of tents at the Shamarekh IDP settlement in Azzaz, Northwest Syria. The Independent Doctors Association (IDA), a local WHO partner in the Azzaz region of Northwest Syria, manages the sprawling camp that houses over 50,000 today.
Jalil Sadiq, photographed here on June 15th, 2023, is a resident of the war-torn region of rural Damascus and has lost two sons in the Syrian conflict. He receives free treatment for chronic trauma-related stress issues at a WHO-supported Static Medical Point in Saqba in rural Damascus. The damage to the medical infrastructure and the loss of medical staff over the past 12 years has left the healthcare system in Syria on its knees as sanctions strangled the medical supply lines and many qualified psychologists and psychiatrists fled the country as the war took hold.
A WHO-supported Vector Control Spray Team works inside a residential building in Deir Hafer in Rural Aleppo to prevent the spread of Leishmaniasis.
Residents from the town of Deir Hafer stand outside a WHO-supported Mobile Tuberculosis Clinic while waiting for TB screening.
Dr. Ghosson Andani fills out a medical record in the WHO-supported Static Medical Point in Duma, rural Damascus. The Lamset Shifa Association manages the health center that provides free primary treatment and prescriptions for local women and children.
Surgeons and nurses stand over a patient in the operation theatre of the Alrezy Hospital in Alrezy Hospital, Aleppo, on June 19th, 2023. Despite being targeted numerous times during the height of the Aleppo shelling, especially in 2016, the hospital remained open, but the majority of the city’s medical services were severely impacted. The city’s blood bank was bombed in 2012, leaving Aleppo without blood supplies. By late 2014, all the major hospitals in Aleppo had suffered heavy damage. Those still functioning were forced to cut services, leaving only forty doctors in Aleppo to serve the needs of over a million people, compared to two thousand doctors before the war. At the time, the World Health Organization (WHO) ranked Syria as the most dangerous place in the world for health workers.
Officially, sanctions aim to compel the Syrian regime to change its behavior. However, sanctions have not removed President Assad, nor have they resulted in any meaningful political concessions by his administration. Contrary to their stated intentions, sanctions worsen the humanitarian crisis, notably in the medical field, where critical supplies are banned from entering the country.
After years of closure, two resilient Syrian shopkeepers recently reopened their computer hardware store. ‘We are back in business.’ Despite this, much of Aleppo’s Old Town remains uninhabitable due to the destruction caused by shelling that peaked in 2018.
Former Aleppo resident Anaas, who is 72 years old, sits on a bed at the Ruh Sagligi Mental Health Hospital in Azzaz in Northwest Syria. Anaas was transferred from Aleppo in 2014 and is one of the 60 full-time patients at the facility.
Male patients at the Ruh Sagligi Mental Health Hospital in Azzaz in Northwest Syria.
A patient at the Ruh Sagligi Mental Health Hospital in Azzaz in Northwest Syria.
A young displaced Syrian girl, whose family fled the Aleppo bombardment in 2016, at the tented Shamarekh IDP settlement in Azzaz, Northwest Syria.
