Syrian doctor saves thousands of lives in hidden underground hospital

By Zehra Mentes

ISTANBUL (AA) - A Syrian pediatrician who helped run a hidden underground hospital in the suburb of Eastern Ghouta on the outskirts of the capital Damascus says she saved thousands of lives during the country’s civil war.

Amani Ballour, who worked at a hospital called “The Cave,” told Anadolu about her experiences in the underground tunnels during the conflict, recalling the destruction caused by the Bashar al-Assad regime in the country.

Born and raised in the rural outskirts of Damascus, the 36-year-old said the idea for the tunnels came about because Eastern Ghouta was under siege at the time.

“You know, we were besieged for nearly six years. The Syrian regime prevented (the entry of) food, medicine, medical supplies and everything. So people in Eastern Ghouta decided to make these tunnels to smuggle food and medicine and the essentials of life,” Ballour noted.

“We also used these tunnels to move about because of the heavy bombardments at the time. Sometimes no one could move on the surface in Eastern Ghouta because of the warplanes and helicopters that were in the sky all the time and watching and bombing,” she recalled.

Highlighting that the tunnels was “very important” for the local people and solved a “really big problem” for them, Ballour said: “Of course, it wasn't enough, as we couldn’t spend all our life underground and do everything underground, but it was very helpful.”

Ballour noted that they also connected some of the tunnels to the cave hospital.

“We had like three tunnels to three different places. We moved through these tunnels especially when the bombardment was very heavy. We also smuggled medicine and even sometimes moved bodies through the tunnels to a grave site.”

The tunnels were crucial because there were a lot of bodies in the hospital during the Syrian regime’s last campaign against Eastern Ghouta and they were having trouble coping with the situation, she said.

More than 10 years have passed since the regime struck Eastern Ghouta with chemical weapons on Aug. 21, 2013, but the victims are still haunted by the nightmarish experience which killed more than 1,400 civilians.

Thousands of women and children were affected by poisonous agents in the attack, which is still fresh in the memories of survivors.

Images of the aftermath showed people who survived the initial strikes struggling to breathe, with many foaming at the mouth and convulsing as medics attempted to help as many victims as possible.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz
​​​​​​​