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EDITOR IN CHIEF- ABDULLAH BIN SALIM AL SHUEILI

Syria graduate doctors set to battle Covid in rebel hub

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AZAZ, Syria: Mohammed Mostafa al Mohammed started studying medicine in rebel-held northern Syria to help the victims of war, but instead he has graduated into a world battling the novel coronavirus pandemic.


The 29-year-old graduate from an opposition-backed university had expected to be tending to the wounded under the threat of bombardment by the Russia-backed Damascus regime.


But after endless regime offensives against Syria’s last major rebel bastion of Idlib, a ceasefire took hold in March, just as COVID-19 started spreading worldwide.


“Our dream is to build Syria and treat the sick”, Mohammed, 29, said at his graduation ceremony in the town of Azaz in a part of Aleppo province controlled by pro-Turkey rebels.


But “we’re facing a difficult challenge” with the coronavirus, said the rescue worker turned doctor.


Humanitarian workers fear any further rise in novel coronavirus cases would be disastrous in northwestern Syria, where around half of three million people live in overcrowded camps or temporary shelters after being displaced by conflict.


In Idlib and adjacent parts of Aleppo province, opposition officials have recorded almost 15,766 novel coronavirus infections in total, including 166 deaths.


Around two-thirds of all confirmed COVID-19 cases in northwestern Syria have been announced over the past month.


Mohammed was among the first 32 doctors who graduated from the “Aleppo University in Liberated Areas”, an institution founded in 2014 and backed by Syria’s political opposition.


Dressed in dark blue and green graduation gowns, caps and facemasks, the new doctors lined up on stage in a hall packed with friends and family.


Extending their right hand in front of them, they recited the Hippocratic Oath in unison in Arabic.


Mohammed, who hails from eastern Syria, was delighted to finally be graduating after the war forced him to put on hold his studies in 2012.


For two years, he volunteered as a rescue worker to help those wounded in bombardment on rebel-held areas, before resuming his studies from scratch in 2014.


“We were constantly exposed to air strikes and artillery fire”, he said of his time with the Syrian Civil Defence first responders known as the “White Helmets”.


— AFP


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