The aid workers who hold key to rebuilding shattered Syria

It was early autumn, and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (Sarc) volunteers were about to cross into no man’s land.

The plain of Houla in north-west Homs, central Syria, has long been bitterly fought over by forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad and opposition fighters battling to overthrow him.Both government and opposition fighters had taken refuge behind sand barricades, separated by a stretch of land where anyone crossing risked a sniper’s bullet. So it fell to the Sarc volunteers, seen as neutral by all sides in the conflict, to deliver humanitarian aid.

First, they had to coordinate with all sides to secure permission. Then their volunteers had to remove the barricades in the open to make a path for the aid trucks. “The Sarc volunteers were in the firing range of the weapons of all the sides, and their only protection was God and the Red Crescent flag,” said Tarek al-Ashraf, the disaster management unit coordinator for Sarc in Homs.

Their ordeal was not over – after emptying the trucks they had to reset the barricades, in a 14-hour operation that tested their resilience. “The neutrality of the Red Crescent and its adherence to its principles allowed it to complete the mission,” said Ashraf.

Syria’s war has claimed the lives of more than a quarter of a million, wounded countless civilians and displaced half the nation’s population, threatening the country’s very existence. Humanitarian workers have risked their lives to deliver aid to besieged areas.

Few parties are seen as neutral, ensuring the importance of the Red Cross and Red Crescent’s work across the battle lines. “We are trying to get humanitarian aid to all people,” said an Sarc official in Aleppo, Syria’s former commercial capital, now divided between the government and the opposition. “We are working in very difficult and complicated circumstances.”

In Aleppo, the organisation has worked on water purification and repairing the water infrastructure in the city, providing generators, water tanks and sewage treatment with support from international humanitarian organisations such as the International Committee of the Red Cross and Unicef.

To make up for the disruption of hospitals and medicine, the organisation has started providing medication for chronic diseases such as diabetes to embattled parts of the country. And the Sarc is helping rebuild the devastated old city in Homs, where about 1,300 families have returned.

“People returned without any source of life,” said Ashraf. “No water networks, no electricity, no markets.” The Sarc began building water tanks, then generators. It helped rebuild destroyed homes, built a wind turbine to keep the street lights on and has helped locals open small businesses in town.

“We will definitely have a big role in rebuilding Syria,” said Ashraf. “We have the experience. We brought back life to Old Homs, and after the end of the crisis we will be the premier humanitarian agency operating in Syria.”