Update from Rita on the situation in Aleppo

I talked to family again today in Aleppo to see how they were doing.  They were telling me that we don't even hear half the news of what is happening in the city.

Some of the hospitals are open - the public ones and also the private hospitals - but they do not have enough doctors that are working in them.  One of the reasons is that doctors have been singled out by the government for helping the other side. They have been targeted, so the ones that could leave have left to the US or Canada with their families. Some have come back to the region and are working in the border towns if they can.

I asked them if someone had to go to the hospital as an emergency is that possible? They say yes, but you still need to go through a lot of check points and you are not sure who is manning each check point.  If you tell them you are going to the hospital you will be interrogated to find out why, what happened, etc- so you might be there for a couple of hours explaining and the person you are taking could be dying.  If you get hurt by a sniper and are taken in by a relative or a friend the same thing will happen but it can get worst since they will want to know where you were when it happened and why you were there and whose side are you on, etc.

My cousin was telling me that about 1/2 million residents of Aleppo are displaced and living either with friends or family, in the streets, or in front of buildings.  They had to leave their homes since they were in areas of bombing and they wanted to protect their families.  They now have a hard time in returning.  There is still about 80% of the population of Aleppo still in their homes in the area outside the center in the newer areas of the city.  Pretty much the old part of the city, the Christian quarter, and the Armenia quarter have all been hit and people have moved out of there.  The old homes that had been redone as hotels for tourism are being used by the rebel forces as strongholds, so these historic hotels get targets and an immense amount of destruction has taken place.

The historic Baron Hotel has been hit hard. The tourist hotel in the middle of downtown and the Amira hotel have been destroyed.  The stories of destruction in the old quarter go on and on.  These are the parts of the city that so much money had been spend on to rebuild the old Islamic structures and get the vibrant part of the old city going again, and now they are in ruins.  Aleppo was part of a project that has been going on for years to preserve old Islamic buildings. The architects that were working on this have received numerous awards for their work.  One of them is my ex-husband, and I am so sorry that this is happening since he and so many people had put so much time and blood and tears to do this work and now in just 18 months most of it has been destroyed.  It will never go back to the way it was.  It will be rebuilt like Beirut was after its civil war and most of it will be high rises, but where will the people be and how will they be emotional and physically?  The traumatic effects of war on any person is long lasting and the worst effect is on the children who will be the new generation that will be running this country- how much hate and grief will they have?  How long will the memories last? Look at what Hafiz the father of Bashar did back in the mid 70's and 80's and the destruction of Hama - those are the people now that are fighting Bashar since they remember their parents, brothers and sisters, etc that were killed, where in one day Hafez came and destroyed Hama and killed 20,000 people.
Rita Zawaideh

Report on Syrian Crisis

I talked to a friend of my daughter today that lives in Aleppo, Zuka. We are trying to convince her to leave, but she says she can't go by herself and leave her family behind.  She is the only one in the family that has a passport.  Even with a war going on you need to have a passport and also ID cards to leave the country and get into another country.  If you have a passport you can go into the city and not into a refugee camp.  She says she can't have her family stay in the camps they have too many problems and too many people.

She is also the only one in the family that is still getting a salary – she was working for ICARDA (International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Regions) and they are paying everyone until January. This is really good news, otherwise she and a lot of other young people would not have any money to live on for themselves and their families.  After 18 months of war, people are running out of money.  Just think if a natural disaster happened here and all banks closed and no ATM's worked, would you have enough cash to live on and for how long? I think most people in the US only keep enough for maybe for one week, if that!

This evening there was a program on 60 Minutes regarding Syria and the reporter states "the only people in the city of Aleppo are the poor".  I am sorry to state that she is very wrong and I will be writing to her.  There are the elderly and the middle class and also the handicapped that have not been able to leave and also a lot of people that did not believe that it would go to this extent and thought they might be able to hold on, but now they are stuck and not able to leave their homes due to snipers, road closures and not sure when the airports are open or not.  The cost of a plane ticket one way from Aleppo to Jordan is $800 and even more to Cairo.  There are only a few airlines that are still going into the country.

A doctor from Ohio, a Syrian-American just returned from a few days in Amman on a fact finding mission- he took a suitcase full of medicine with him and said that he will be doing this about twice a month.  He will leave on a Friday arrive on a Saturday and then return back to the US on a Monday.  He is very committed and wants to help in any way possible.  He came back and told me that the items that are really needed are:
1.  Hygiene kits for the women - purchasing in Jordan for $14
2.  School kit for children - purchasing in Jordan for $12
3.  Adult diapers - not sure of prices
4. Blankets for the winter

Salaam Cultural Museum and Caravan-Serai have joined forces with Disaster Training International and the Syrian American Association of Washington (SAAWA) to collect donations for these items.  We have Father Samir Abulail, a Jordanian from Irbid, that is leaving on the 1st of November and he will be taking the money back and purchasing the items through a wholesaler that we know there to get as much as we can for the money he will have with him.

If anyone wants to make a donation you are able to earmark what you want us to purchase with your funds and we will take note of that.

We want to thank you all for your concern and your emails about family and friends and also your guides that you had when you traveled there.  We are hoping that this will not keep on, but it looks like a very long fight and one that is not easy to resolve.

We are working on getting a fact finding group to go over about the end of November.  We are planning to include a therapist, trauma specialist, speech therapist, and a doctor from here to go and do our own research.  We will keep you all apprised of the situation.

Destruction of the Souk in Aleppo

This post was written by Rita, who spent many years living in Aleppo.

This is the souk I remember in Aleppo.  When I live there I was in this place daily for my regular shopping.  I would go and sit with the merchants and talk to them and just have a great time and also talk to the tourist as they were coming in.  During those days they were mostly British, French, and Italian, and only a few Americans.  Then after I moved from Aleppo and came back to the US and opened Caravan-Serai Tours I would take people on the tours to one of my favorite places - the souk - to get their olive oil soaps and their spices and then some other things that they wanted.  This was not a tourist market this was a market that the locals would use so you saw all different kinds of people in all different modes of attire. I have talked to my spice man who I used for over 20 years and he is safe and at home with his family, but his shop is no longer there.  This was a shop that was owned by his great-great-grandfather and was passed down through the family.  This was a man that would tell me not to put the cinnamon next to the pepper since it would drink the smell away and it would be overpowered by the cinnamon - do not put your dry mint next to your saffron since everything will then smell like mint, etc, etc.  This was a part of my life and history so you can imagine what he is going through and what the Syrian people are going through that were so proud of their city.

The souk now has been burned by both the rebel forces and the military.  The rebels had taken refuge inside the souk and then the firing started between the different groups. The reports are stating about 1500 shops have been burned, since the doors that the shop keepers had were all made of wood. The market dates back about 2500 years ago.  It stood up to all kinds of foreign invasions over the centuries, earthquakes, but not the powerful tools of war of the 21st century.

I talked to Faez in Aleppo to see how they were all doing, he said “how do you think we are doing- we are listening to the news ad hearing what they have done to the old city. The destruction of one of the Old World Heritage Sites is something hard for us to accept.  We have 7 different Old Heritage Sites in this area and all have taken some sort of damage.”  I said, “I know, and I want to cry - what can we do?” He says to tell people to talk to their government officials and try and get this to stop. Get the foreign soldiers out of the country.  Let just the Syrians handle this.  The foreign soldiers and the others that are trying to help are not helping.  We have foreign mercenaries that have nothing to lose by burning these ruins and raping and abusing the children- this is a war and they are being paid.

We need to get the different sides to sit and talk and negotiate peace- this is something that can't keep going on - a solution is needed immediately.

This is what the souk is looking like now.  Syria is in need of foreign intervention.

I also, talked to Alaa in Damascus today and he says it is relatively ok there - way better than in Aleppo. His kids are going to school and the businesses are open, but that is for now.

You can see that both the government and the rebels are going from one area and destroying that and then moving on.  We saw that in Homs and in Hama that are pretty much ghost towns at this point.  We can't say this will be happening to Aleppo.  The museum in Palmyra has been destroyed and the artifacts have been stolen.  For a lot of you that used to travel with us to Syria I have been told that the young men that would sell us the jewelry, tablecloths, scarves etc. while at the sites are now gone and have joined the FSA.  Some have taken their families across the border to Jordan, walking thru the desert for days to get to the camps.  They do not have their documentation so they have to sneak into the country.

There is talk today that Jordan might have to close its borders to deal with the refugees they have if they are not able to get international aid for them. We are asking for your help.  Please forward these emails to friends and other people that you know that are worried or care for human lives and helping the children of the region.

We thank you for reading and listening.

~Rita

Syrian Refugee Crisis

The numbers are screaming out at us that by the end of the year 2012 we will have reached 700,000 refugees have fled Syria and are in the neighboring countries.  Most of these are in Jordan and more and more are coming.  This has become more then a humanitarian crisis of all proportions.  The neighboring countries are not able to handle the influx of new arrivals.  In the last week you had over 2,000 arrive at the camp in Jordan.  They are full , the NGO's had estimated that they would be reaching 185,000, but they have surpassed that and that is the new figure that have arrived at for now.

 

The UNHCR is not callling this business as usually any longer - before this they were receiving about 1,000 to 2,000 a week, they are receiving this on a daily basis as the killing goes on and their is no intervention from outside sources.

 

 "So it really is a completely different speed of emergency response, responding to the best of our ability to basically to provide the very, very minimum for people who arrive and flee and arrive in a traumatized state once they cross the border,"   Some have been displaced many times before leaving Syria and are in need of immediate humanitarian assistance.  They are coming with just the clothes on their backs

 

One camp in Jordan that was opened two-months-ago hosts more than 30,000 Syrians.  Another camp in northern Iraq has more than 27,000.  In Turkey, almost 88,000 refugees live in 13 camps. Two new camps were opened in Turkey 2 weeks ago and they are already full. UNHCR reports that women and children make up 75 percent of the Syrian refugee population.

Please we need you to open your hearts to what is happening to the innocent civilians - women, children and the elders and the handicapped.  They have no idea how long they will be here.  The harsh weather is approaching.  We want to try and get more doctors to the region to work on the effects of trauma on these children and how it will effect them later in life.  The other NGO are working on getting shelter and food and we want to help with the mental strain that this is causing.

 

Anything that you are able to do would be appreciated by all

 

Thank you

Please go to http://salaamculturalmuseum.wordpress.com/ to donate to help Syrian refugees in Jordan.

Syria Update, September 29, 2012

Syria Update, September 29, 2012 (Institute of Middle Eastern, Islamic and Strategic Studies. By Sherifa Zuhur)

Death toll: More than 94

Friday’s revised death toll: More than 160 including 104 unarmed civilians.

A report from Medicins sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) from Syria:
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/news/article.cfm?id=6324&cat=voice-from-the-field

Aleppo province: A major fire engulfed the medieval markets, a tourist attraction in the city of Aleppo sparked by clashes between the Syrian military and the opposition. Many shops were destroyed and some were still burning this morning. http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/29/syria-crisis-idUSL5E8KT1VJ20120929?type=marketsNews

Clashes between the Syrian military and the opposition took place in the neighborhoods of Bab Antaya, al-Itha’a, Karm al-Beik, al-Kura al-Ardiyya, the al-Jandoul roundabout, al-Midan, al-Sakhour, Tariq al-Bab, and near the al-Nayrab military airport. Mortars fired at the airport damaged 2 helicopters. Clashes also occurred near the al-Madfa’iyya artillery school and a building nearby was shelled by the opposition and then burned. Shelling on Karam al-Jabal killed three persons. A sniper shot a civilian in Sleiman al-Halabi.

The Syrian military shelled the towns of Anadan, Hreitan, Kafar Hamra and Tell Rifa`at.

Damascus province: Tonight it was reported that the Syrian military were carrying out arbitrary raids and arrests in the al-Qadam neighborhood. Many have fled the area of Barzeh due to raids by the Syrian military and clashes there. The opposition attacked a Syrian military checkpoint in al-Asali, killing 2 Syrian military troops.

Eight persons were summarily executed in al-Qudsiyya. The Syrian military executed five people in the town of Maaraba. The Syrian military executed 15 people in the town of al-Baytariyya. Heavy clashes took place in the town of al-Hjeira. The Syrian military heavily shelled the town of Artouz and the town of Saqba, killing a man in Saqba.

Dara`a province: The Syrian military overran the Shamali neighborhood in the town of al-Mozeyrib, and surrounded the town. Many were killed in clashes in the area around the town and subsequently the opposition withdrew from Mozeyrib. Reportedly, an opposition IED attack on their bus, killed 15 Syrian military troops. Heavy clashes took place in Tafas, which like Mozeirab also came under heavy shelling. The Syrian military also shelled the al-Lijah area.

Deir az-Zur: The Syrian military heavily shelled the eastern districts of the city of Deir az-Zur today. The Syrian military stormed the neighborhoods of Jbeila and Ba’ajeen in the city of Deir az-Zur and carried out raids and arrests there.

The Syrian military bombarded the towns of al-Muhasan and al-Mre'iyya, causing injuries and damaging homes.

Hassakeh province: The Syrian military forces fired on civilians from checkpoints near the Masakin al-Zubbat (officers resiences) in the city of al-Qamishli, injuring civilians today.

Hama province: The Syrian military shelled the towns of Erfa and Rebda.

Homs province: Clashes raged between the opposition and the Syrian military and regime-backed militias near the villages of al-Ghasaniyya and al-Heidariyya. The Syrian military heavily shelled al-Rastan.

Idlib province: The villages of eastern Ma'arat al-Nu'man were shelled by the Syrian military and electricity has been cut off. The Syrian military shot a man from the area of Jisr al-Shughour. The Syrian military heavily shelled the town of Sarmin.

Latakia province: The opposition has learned that the Syrian state security branch in the city of Latakia detained Salim al-Rifa`i on the 20th of September, 2102 and charged him with being in contact with a terrorist organization, referring him on to Damascus. Al-Rifa`I is a humanitarian aid activist working with refugees and not a member of an armed group.

The Syrian military shelled the villages of Beit A’wan, Jabal al-Akrad, al-Khadra, al-Qneitra and Jabal al-Turkman. Heavy clashes took place in the village of al-Khadra.

Al-Raqqa province: The Hamam al-Turkman town of Reef al-Raqa was bombarded by regime forces, leading to several injuries.

Tartous province: The Syrian military have stormed through the Wata al-Bayda area in Banyas city carrying out raids and arrests.

Refugees: Syria’s refugees discuss their fear and their pain.
Photographs above and videos in the link below: http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/AP-VIDEO-Syrian-refugees-discuss-their-pain-fear-3905389.php
http://hosted.ap.org/interactives/2012/syria/

International: Ireland’s Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Eamon Gilmore spoke to the United nations General Assembly last night and urged members of the UN Security Council to levy sanctions on the regime of Bashar al-Assad. He said the situation in Syria is “an affront to humanity” which requires a “clear and unrelenting” response. Delivering Ireland’s address to the UN General Assembly last night, http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0929/breaking1.html
Al-Arabiyya claims that secret documents show that the Syrian government executed two Turkish pilots who survived a crash on June 22, when their F-4 Phantom was shot down by Syrian military. http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/09/29/240805.html

Report from Aleppo

Rita recently spoke with family members in Aleppo and her is what she heard from them:

I talked to family last night in Aleppo and they said this is the first time that they have had the shelling so close to home.  It is moving from the old city and the outskirts of Aleppo to the residential areas.  This is coming from both sides that are doing the shelling- we got the FSA that is working on the ground and then you have the Syrian military that is shelling from the air.  The people have no chance what so ever.

An aunt was able to get out and get to Turkey recently she hired a driver and the cost was $400 US per person to drive them the normally three hours to the border and this would take almost the whole day.  If you needed to take a car to Damascus the cost was even higher of $800 per person and then to get to Jordan by car it was $350.00.  As you can see with prices like this only a few are able to do that and others are walking to get out of the country if they can, carrying whatever they can take with them.  Usually it is food and some basic supplies and then things for the kids.

Like everything during the time of war inflation sets in and everything costs much more.  When talking to family they said they just leave the house to get some basic supplies that they need and come back home.  They are pretty much in their homes taking cover and listening to the radio or the government run TV station.  The other information they get is some thru internet, when they have electricity and then thru word of mouth of what is happening and what area of town not to go to and who has been killed recently.

The ones that are suffering the most from this are the children who will be growing up knowing only death and destruction and their parents or grandparent or siblings being killed and tortured.

It is so hard with the family so far away in war zones the airports are closed and there is no way out for now.  Medicine is running low and so are some basic food supplies, but they still have their spirits.

The news media has switched their attention to the anti-Islam movie and the violence that has caused, and are not really covering Syria and all the victims that are being killed on a regular basis.

Please do not forget Syria and its people.

To make a donation to help the Syrian refugees flooding into Jordan, click here.

Aleppo, Syria

Aleppo's Ommayad Mosque after a brief rainstorm.

The only day it rained during our entire trip was our day in and around Aleppo on October 15. We got lucky, though. Our day started at the Citadel of Aleppo, then the Museum afterwards. As we were leaving the museum for St. Simeon, it started to rain. We had decided to stop and get some "pizzas" for lunch to take on the way and eat while we were at St. Simeon. It rained all the way there and and while we ate our lunch in the bus, but as soon as we were done, the rain stopped! We were able to visit the site where St. Simeon the Stylite, a Christian ascetic, settled in 412. He lived for nearly 40 years on the top of a column, surrounded by pilgrims. The surrounding basilica and baptistry are on a hill top overlooking the surrounding countryside and you can see Turkey to the north. As soon as our visit was over and we were heading back to Aleppo in the bus, the rain started again!

Once back in Aleppo we went to visit the Ommayad Mosque and the souk with its miles and miles of covered passageways, located at the foot of the citadel. The souk is ancient, having been in use for centuries because of Aleppo's important location on the trade routes between east and west. You can spend days and days exploring all of the souk, and you can buy everything from kitchen utensils, fabrics, clothing, gold, souvenirs, soap, spices, nuts, sweets, and more. It is an asault on your senses, but in a good way- the odors of the spices and the sounds of the merchants moving more goods to their shops on the backs of donkeys, colors of all types of fabrics. The souk is a world of its own. Once inside, you leave the city behind, and it is very easy to get lost. I don't know if the is a map of the layout of the souk, but I doubt it would do any good. But half the fun and adventure of visiting the souk is to emerse yourself if this age-old insitution of trade and commerce, and forget about what might be going on outside.

Brenda