Damascus: Abdelkarim Ibrahim, an aid worker in the besieged Syrian region of eastern Ghouta partnered with ‘Save the Children’ has spoken of the suffering and hopelessness felt by civilians trapped in the region saying it is a “wholesale slaughter witnessed by a motionless world.”
Ibrahim is working to distribute winter kits to civilians.
Ibrahim, through a translator told Huffington Post of the “hysterical panic” experienced by people in the face of “constant airstrikes, barrel bombs and artillery bombardment.”
“There has been a devastating deterioration in quality of life for Ghouta’s population,” he said from Syria.
“The civilians of eastern Ghouta have never witnessed such a battering campaign where … more than 4,200 airstrikes over the city of eastern Ghouta were launched. A city with a total area of 107 square kilometers [about 41 square miles] and 400,000 inhabitants has been battered by more than 4,200 airstrikes.”
“The internal refugees lack the minimal essentials of human life ― food, medicine and clothes. Currently, all the people of Ghouta live in basements unequipped with the basics needed for living,” he said.
“The basements are prisons for the masses … . Such abject lack of cleanliness and health care facilities, such as water and personal hygiene equipment, have led to the spread of epidemics and other related issues, such as lice among children. The shortage of medicine for people with chronic diseases, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, has led to deaths. People with kidney disease are unable to have lifesaving dialysis sessions in Ghouta.
“There is difficulty in burying dead bodies. The city’s graveyards are among the targeted areas by the bombardment, which makes it impossible for people to bury the bodies of the dead. In Douma people had to bury the dead in public parks and in the backyards of houses because it was not possible for them to make it to the city’s graveyard.”
Ibrahim claimed people round the globe had ignored the situation in Syria.
“It is an option for people in other countries of the world to pressure their governments and the human rights organizations into taking a collaborative stand against the mass killing of civilians in Eastern Ghouta. Their success would save hundreds of thousands of people from the wholesale slaughter witnessed by a motionless world.
“They are just like any other people around the world. This is what people outside Ghouta should realize so that they can firmly use their efforts to save them and protect them against injustice and killing.”