Syria woman rescued quake victims, won over those who told her to stay home

Syrian Civil Defence volunteer, Salam Mahmoud, had only one thought when she saw the collapsed buildings after the devastating earthquake that struck Syria and Turkiye, Reuters reports.

“All I could think about was how can I get the children out? If there is someone alive, how can I reach them?” the 24-year-old said.

Mahmoud is one of around 300 women in the Syria Civil Defence, also called the White Helmets, a rescue service of more than 3,000 people which operates in insurgent-held north-western Syria.

She said some people in the village of Millis, where she deployed the day of the disaster, objected at first to the sight of women taking part in rescue efforts.

“When we first got to the site … we were criticised a lot, and were told that we should not have come down,” she said, describing socially conservative views in the area about the role of women.

“But all of that shortly switched from negative to positive [comments]. We saved as many people as we could, met people’s expectations and responded to women and children, who were under the rubble,” she said.

READ: Urgent action needed in NW Syria to prevent collapse of water systems

Getting home that evening, Mahmoud said she could not sleep. “All night I was thinking: could there still be children calling for us, could there still be women screaming out?”

The earthquake has killed more than 4,500 people in north-west Syria, according to local reports cited by the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Assistance. It killed more than 45,000 in neighbouring Turkiye.

The Civil Defence rose to prominence by pulling people from under the rubble of buildings destroyed by air strikes and bombardment during the conflict that erupted in Syria in 2011.

Mahmoud has volunteered with the Civil Defence for five years. Her role includes providing primary health care for women in the western Idlib region.