Reports | 19 09 2016
Abu Mohammed, a Civil Defense member, follows the sounds of barrel bombs, missiles, and bombs every morning, risking his life in order to save others’ lives in Aleppo, and trying to save them from under the rubble.
Abu Mohammed does not care to the danger, or repeatedly shelling, as he does his best in his work in the Civil Defense, after leaving his former career as a tailor.
"We are not like any Civil Defense in the world!"
The sacrifices of the white helmets’ members are not limited to the city of Aleppo and around it, despite the weakness of the possibilities in the required location, rescuing civilians and burying the victims of war, especially with the ongoing shelling on the east of Aleppo by the Syrian regime on opposition areas east of Aleppo, after decoding the siege in August.
Abu Mohammed says: "When I volunteered in the Civil Defense Corps, I was very aware that we are not like any civil defense in the world, and I was sure that I was going to death by my own will, and I was exposed to the pressures by my family to give up my job, though I will continue in this humanitarian work until the last breath."
From barber to lives’ savior
With personal efforts the first Civil Defense Crop was established of Aleppo in 2013, by a group of activists, relying on the sleeves’ strength and their simple tools in removing rubble, without having any external funding or equipment.
The conditions of Faisal al-Haj Ibrahim turned him from a barber into a volunteer in the Civil Defense teams since the beginning of the opposition activity Aleppo, hopes to offer a helping hand to the people of his country's war-weary, as he says.
"All I want from this work is the sense that I am offering even a little to the people of the cities, many of my colleagues were killed while carrying out their duties, but I have coexisted with the gravity of my work, and with the idea that I may go out and never come back", Faisal explains.
Faisal retrieves harsh moments, settled down in his memory. One day he arrived in a bombed neighborhood by the warplanes, he began to bring the trapped under the rubble with the help of some other members, and it was necessary for one of them to risk his life in order to take down one of the walls that was on the verge of collapse even to rescue more people, a colleague and a friend of him volunteered to do that task, but he never came back, and he lost his life because of it. Faisal continues ruefully: "That accident made me sad, I have recovered the body of my friend in my two hands."
Insistence
Fear does not know the way to the heart of Khalid, with more than three years as a volunteer in the Civil Defense teams in Aleppo, he is still insisting on completing what he has started, despite the insistence of his family on him to give up his current job.
Khalid added: "I overcame my fear and joined the Civil Defense, and I suffer a lot with my family who is afraid that I may die afraid because of the danger of my work, but man doesn’t die before his day, I will stay at my work until the end of the war."
More than 56 thousand people of civilians were rescued by the Civil Defense in Syria last year, according to the estimates of the Organization "Syrian Campaign" which called through the campaign launched in early August, to support the candidature of the Civil Defense Organization for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2016.
