ROCHELLE JUNIOR

Sweida- As the humanitarian crisis following the recent clashes in Syria's Druze-majority province of Sweida has been deepening, women play an active role to rebuild their city; they work voluntarily in hospitals to help the injured, clean hospitals and distribute medications amidst the destruction.

 She decided to stay at hospital

Rasha Kashour is one of the women who work voluntarily at the National Hospital in Sweida. When the attacks on the city started, her brother was injured and she took her brother to the hospital. “My brother was injured on the first day of the attacks,” she told NuJINHA. “I took him to the hospital; however, the hospital was in dire straits and there was nobody to help. I had previously attended a short first aid course and I decided to stay there to help.”

On the second day, Rasha Kashour started distributing medications to the patients, helping the injured and cleaning the hospital.

Drone attacks

Semaher Shiya is a pregnant woman, who fled the village of Samia in the Sweida Governorate, southern Syria, with her three daughters and her husband when the attacks on the village started.

“When we heard that they (armed groups) were going to enter our village with tanks, we fled immediately,” she told us. “My husband was injured in one of the drone strikes on our way. We were terrified. We were able to reach Sweida and take him to the hospital, but the situation in the hospital was terrible.

The house of Semaher Shiya’s family was burned down and their property was destroyed. “Now we are homeless. We do not know where to go,” Semaher Shiya said in despair.

‘We band together’

Manal al-Hanawi, head of the Al-Jawhara Charitable Association in Sweida, did not wait for an official invitation to offer assistance. Instead, she and her colleagues took the initiative to shoulder the suffering of Sweida's people.

“Two days ago, we started working voluntarily at the hospital. We try to help as much as we can. Yesterday, we transported medical aid, and today we cleaned the hospital, which reeked of death. We band together, being one body. We share water and bread with each other. We will never leave each other alone.”