Reader’s Digest
106 july 2019
she didn’t know what had happened.”
Mahameed tucked her into his arms,
and the child clung to him until he
was able to return her to her mother.
Farouq Habib, 37, is the White
Helmets’ support-unit director
and liaises between the group and
Mayday Rescue. Before the bloodbath
by Assad’s forces left almost 18,000
dead across the country, he was an
investment banker in Homs. Habib
saw his house destroyed and his
family displaced.
Like Mahameed, Habib was
arrested, jailed and tortured
for months by the regime. Like
Mahameed, he doesn’t talk
about that. Instead, he talks about
rescue: “When the bombs explode,
some people run to escape. Others
run to help.”
Armed with stretchers, not guns,
the White Helmets became heroes.
They also became the public enemy of
Bashar al-Assad, in part because they
were keeping people alive despite his
bombardments, but also because they
attached cameras to their helmets
to record the chemical attacks and
barrel bombings, gathering evidence
of his war crimes.
In retaliation, as areas fell to the
regime, amnesty was offered to all
but the White Helmets. “They were
singled out, taken off buses, put
into regime detention facilities,”
says James Le Mesurier, founder
of Mayday Rescue. “They were
tortured, terrorized and forced tomake video confessions alleging that
they had been responsible for
conducting atrocities.”
They were also subjected to
‘double tap’ operations: The regime
would bomb an area, and when the
White Helmets rushed in a second
bombardment would target the
rescuers. Then, after the fall of the
rebel-held areas in the south in June
2018, residents were told they had to
fill out reconciliation forms, pledge
allegiance to Assad and identify
terrorists, mass graves and White
Helmets. The first responders feared
they would be arrested, tortured and
made to disappear. With 255 of their
numbers already dead and more than
700 wounded, the risk to their lives
was extraordinary.T
he rescue operation was driven
by people in the field, such as
special envoy Canadian Robin
Wettlaufer. Located in Istanbul,
she’d been working with the White
Helmets—arranging funding, training
and support—for over four years. On
3 July 2018, Ra’ed Saleh, the leader
of the White Helmets, met with
Wettlaufer and asked, “Is there
anything Canada can do to help?”
The regime was advancing faster
than anticipated; his people were
in trouble. The targeted men and
women had only weeks, maybe even
days to escape.
Wettlaufer dispatched an urgent
report to Global Affairs Canada,