From refugees to the front line against Corona ... Syrian doctors risk their lives to save the Europeans

The French newspaper “Le Figaro” said that many Syrian doctors who found refuge in Europe when they fled the war in their country are now on the frontline of the battle against the pandemic of “Covid 19” in their host countries.

In an article by Wilson Fash, the newspaper reviewed samples from Syrian doctors working in different countries in Europe, and said they were putting their lives at risk by working in the front rows in the face of the Corona epidemic.

The article started with the story of the 30-year-old Syrian doctor Fadi Dalati, whom the newspaper interviewed from behind his mask, glasses and surgeon's suit, and he is on the front line against the Corona epidemic at the Saint Pierre University Hospital Center in Brussels, which is the reference center in Belgium for infectious diseases.

"Belgium was there for me when I needed it when I arrived in 2013, and now it needs me, so I do my best ... I feel today that I am Belgian ... no ... I am Belgian," he says, as his French language mixed with an accent already attests. Flamingo.

In the hospital yard where this Syrian doctor works, rows of tents have been set up exceptionally to receive patients and classify them to isolate those affected by the Corona epidemic, at a time when the deaths exceeded 6,500 in Belgium, the newspaper says.

In another hospital in the capital, Brussels, the newspaper interviewed the Syrian Abboud, 27, who works in the sterilization products division, and told her about quarantine in empty homes and streets that "this reminds me of Syria in wartime."

The newspaper said that this young man from Raqqa - the former stronghold of the Islamic State - fled his country in September 2015 via Turkey, through Greece and the Balkans, and says that "the Syrians and many other refugees working in the medical sector in Europe are putting their lives at risk" "If I were an activist on the far right, this crisis would have made me reconsider my political convictions," he added.

In the same context, the newspaper said that some Syrian doctors have already risked their lives in Italy, which was the favorite destination for the Syrians, where four of them died since the beginning of the epidemic, among them the oncologist Abdel Sattar Ayroud, born in Aleppo in 1945.

Kinda said the daughter of this doctor who was running the house To care for the elderly after his formal retirement five years ago, her father contracted an infection from one of his patients and died on March 16 due to complications. Because there was no site in the local Muslim cemetery, he was buried in the village of Montichiari, more than 100 km from his home.

Syrian Bashar Farhat, who lives in England and works in the emergency room amid an unprecedented health crisis, says in turn, "Since I left Syria, I have been worried about my parents who stayed there ... Ironically, they are now worried about me."

He added that the fugitive from the Idlib region in 2013 after being arrested by the regime because of his links to the opposition, added that he is not worried about himself, but about his country, "This is not my first war," explaining that the Syrian doctors learned to work under pressure from their experiences inside Syria.

At a time when the world is witnessing a huge health catastrophe, and countries need all their medical staff, Bashar Farhat says that the health care system in Syria was on the verge of collapse before the epidemic, expressing remorse because he was forced to flee. "My place is Syria .. I hope to help my people ".

The newspaper points to the seriousness of the situation in Syria, which has not been officially announced, except for 42 cases of corona infection, three of which have died, questioning the accuracy of this figure, considering that it is much less than the actual number of injured, which means that this country, which has been torn by a bloody conflict for a decade, can That the spread of the epidemic has catastrophic consequences, especially in the Idlib region, where 3 million civilians are trapped on the border with Turkey.

"It is a great pain to have to leave when there is a need," says Damascene Yamama Bedewi, 28, who works with Corona patients at Erdel Hospital in Bradford, UK and provides online lessons for medical students at the Free University of Aleppo.

The newspaper indicated that 50% of physicians had already left Syria in 2015, according to the non-governmental organization Physicians for Human Rights, and that at least 923 health professionals were killed between 2011 and 2020, more than 90% of them by pro-government forces and their allies The Russians who systematically targeted hospitals in rebel areas.

For his part, Ryan Qutaish, a Middle East researcher, says that leaving or killing any doctor for the country creates a catastrophic vacuum and shortage that is difficult to fill, and that it will have major consequences in the short, medium and long term.