Reader’s Digest

104 july 2019

I

t was black as pitch on the Syrian side of the border and

floodlit on the Israeli side when the curtain rose on a dramatic

rescue. Out of the darkness in the Golan Heights they came—

the famed Syrian White Helmets—the bankers and barbers and

ordinary citizens, known across the world for their courage. They

came, exhausted and frightened, walking with their families up

the grassy slope in Syria towards the forbidden border with Israel.

Over the course of Syria’s seven-year civil war, these men and women

of the Syrian Civil Defence Force had braved barrel bombings and

chemical attacks to save more than 1,14,000 citizens who dared oppose

President Bashar al-Assad. Now, singled out for torture and death by

the regime, they had to be rescued.

funding from Canada, the United

Kingdom, Germany, the United States,

Japan and the Netherlands, what

began as the Syrian Civil Defence

Force had, by 2014, morphed into a

movement of 4,200 volunteers. They

worked in approximately 150 rebel

towns, villages and cities. Because

they donned white construction

helmets before going to a rescue they

came to be called the White Helmets.

Jihad Mahameed, 51, a former

accounts manager at a bank in Daraa,

remembers the night in January 2013

that he became a White Helmet. “Our

neighbourhood was hit with bombs.

A woman was injured and crying.

She was sure her baby was dead.”

Mahameed and his friends began

digging in the rubble. “We found the

baby, covered in dust and sitting in

a corner of the building, looking like

In the fall of 2012, Bashar al-

Assad’s government began attacking

villages, towns and cities that were

against his regime. His claim: Any

opposition to his autocratic rule was

an act of terrorism. He withdrew all

ambulance, fire and rescue services

from areas not under government

control, leaving citizens helpless. As

bombs fell, there was no one to put

out fires or help people trapped in

the rubble. And when the attacks

ended, there was no one to restart the

electricity, reconnect water services or

repair bridges.

That’s when groups of ordinary

Syrians, first in the cities of Aleppo

and Idlib and later throughout the

rebel-held areas, united to respond.

After receiving training from

Mayday Rescue, a UK not-for-profit

foundation in Jordan, and with