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www.insideHALTON.com · OAKVILLE BEAVER Wednesday, January 30, 2013 · 4 Targeting of health-care facilities unprecedented considered a war crime. "I think this is unprecedented -- a systematic and strategic targeting of health-care facilities," said Dr. Greg Elder, deputy director of operations for MSF Paris who recently returned from Syria. The medical charity runs three emergencycare hospitals -- all unmarked -- in rebel-held territory along the axis of Homs, Idlib and Aleppo. The conditions in most underground hospitals are "primitive," said Dr. Zaher Sahloul, president of the Syrian American Medical Society, which helps run many of the secret clinics. In small houses, often with no electricity or anesthesia, doctors perform emergency surgery on kitchen tables. Patients suffering horrendous blast injuries from tank fire or rockets are sewn up and told to leave immediately because the clinic could be bombed. Doctors are being targeted as a way to punish protesters because they are unable to get medical help if injured while fighting, he said. "There is a saying that if you kill one doctor it is better than 100 soldiers," Sahloul said, speaking from Chicago where he practises critical-care medicine. "And if a doctor is killed everyone knows about it. It is a tool of intimidation." When the war began in March 2011 the government tracked down protesters in hospitals and identified them by bullet wounds Continued from page 1 "We have lost ambulance drivers because they are carrying medical supplies. I know five drivers who were killed on the spot. They were shot at security checkpoints. They were carrying blood bags, I.V., dressing, anesthesia." Dr. Anas al Kassem received in demonstrations. Then doctors caught treating them were imprisoned or threatened, said Elder. Now it is an "all out assault," on physicians, he said. As a result, hospitals have been forced underground and healthcare workers must smuggle equipment across the Turkish border. Physicians for Human Rights, an American advocacy group, published a report saying that during the first seven months of the conflict 250 doctors were arrested and interrogated for treating injured protesters. Others say the figure is higher. At least 800 medical workers have been detained, tortured or killed since the uprising began, said Sahloul. "We have lost ambulance drivers because they are carrying medical supplies," said al Kassem. "I know five drivers who were killed on the spot. They were shot at security checkpoints. They were carrying blood bags, I.V., dressing, anesthesia." Al Kassem, an obesity surgeon at Norfolk General Hospital in Simcoe, Ont., works in Aleppo and Idlib provinces which are loosely controlled by anti-government fighters operating under the Free Syrian Army umbrella. "In Aleppo, there are seven surgeons and none have seen their families for four months although they live a few kilometres from their homes," said al Kassem. "They are sleeping in the secret hospitals because they are too afraid to leave." Al Kassem, who said he pays for his trips out of his own pocket, recalled how the killing of his friend, Noor Maktabi, a professor at Aleppo University's hospital, sent a shock through the close-knit medical community. Maktabi had been treating casualties on both sides. He was detained for four months, tortured and killed last November by pro-Assad forces. "They sent his body to his house, back to his family. Why? Because they wanted to send a message that this is what will happen to you if you treat the wounded," said al Kassem. "He was a real hero and did not belong to any party." Both doctors said the risk did not deter them from going back. "It is our humanitarian role and if we did not do it no one would do it," said Sahloul who is returning for a sixth visit since the war started. "Syrians feel that the international community has abandoned them." Al Kassem was emotional as he articulated why he left the safety of his adopted homeland where he practises obesity surgery to work in a war zone. After finishing medical school in Damascus and studying in Germany he moved to Canada in 2002 to marry his Syrian-Canadian wife. "Kids are losing their limbs, losing their dads. There are so many orphans, wounds, bleeding, Syria is a disaster. Nobody is there. We have to be there." 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