‘Focus on rebuilding Syria’ says White Helmets rescuer

We spoke to Ismail Alabdullah from the White Helmets, which is the volunteer emergency rescue service which has been operating in opposition-controlled areas of Syria.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: What does this revolution mean to you?

Ismail Alabdullah: It means that we have our freedom, our freedom of speech. Now we can practise our rights without fearing. And now, after the falling of the regime, now after the experience, the big experience actually, of the regime bombing and killing Syrians all over the past years – now no bombing, no displacement, no fear, no chemical attacks, no victims of the atrocities. It means a lot for us – for all Syrians.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Now, for years, people have been seeing the videos by the White Helmets from your helmet cameras as you’ve been digging people through…out of the rubble. Now the war, it seems, is over in most of Syria. What is your role now? What is the job of the White Helmets?

Ismail Alabdullah: Our job will focus on rebuilding Syria. Now we have large areas that are contaminated with ordnance. This will take a lot of time to clear the unexploded ordnance. And we will focus on removing the rubble that was caused by that bombing over the past years. We have the health programme, the health system in Syria already fragile, and now we have a big responsibility. We have the biggest fleet of ambulances. And now we operate in all Syria, not just in Aleppo or Idlib. Now we have Homs, Hama, Damascus, Deir ez-Zur, all those provinces need our help. So our role now is bigger. Our responsibility is bigger than before.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So you will be part of the emergency services of this new stage?

Ismail Alabdullah: Yeah, our role will be that maybe the main side, the main party, of receiving the emergency and responding.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: So you in the north have had to work with some of these people who are now forming this national government. What are they like to work with?

Ismail Alabdullah: Yeah, we work intermittently since the establishment and we will continue that now with the new government. If the government, with that, will give us our freedom and the working, of course, we’ll have this coordination with the government that will establish after March.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Now, as you know, I mean there have been lots of allegations laid at the White Helmets, that you were not just working under the control of these sorts of groups, but that you were hand in glove, that some of you were White Helmets one day – and then militants the next. What’s your answer to those allegations?

Ismail Alabdullah: Our answer of what’s happened is that Russia, over the last years, is attacking us, attacking our volunteers, killed more than 300 of our volunteers – the majority of them by the double tap. Our evidence – documenting the evidence – at that time, our answer and the fall of the regime and what Russia did to the White Helmets over the last years is our answer. They attacked us because we were documenting and we will continue on this. We will continue to have justice for all victims. We will keep working on justice and accountability.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: But given that you, your people, are mostly drawn from one community, how will you be able to serve the whole of Syria, which has many communities?

Ismail Alabdullah: The White Helmets, when we started in 2014, we started from Damascus and the countryside of Damascus. Deir ez-Zur, Homs, Hama – we have volunteers from all provinces, mostly all the provinces. Now we are back. Who were displaced from Damascus and the countryside of Damascus now are back. And now we are operating since yesterday, Homs, the same thing. The volunteers who were displaced from Homs are back, Hama the same thing. The volunteers who volunteered in the countryside of Hama back in 2014, now they are back to serve their people, to help their people. So how can we do this? From our volunteers who are from all the provinces and the new provinces.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: But are they from all communities? I mean, are you saying to Shia, Alawite Syrians and Kurdish Syrians – come and join us?

Ismail Alabdullah: All Syrians – we have from all Syrians. Our officers have all of the Syrians, not just from one area.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: And how will you fund yourselves now? I mean, there was some foreign funding in the past, wasn’t there? So will Syria’s government now be able to fill that gap?

Ismail Alabdullah: We hope that – we hope, this is our ambition. This is our hope in rebuilding. To see once again, to receive the funding from the government and be from the state – not receiving from here and there. And this is our hope, but if it’s not working, we’ll keep our way of working.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: And to people who fear that this may fall apart, what is your message to them?

Ismail Alabdullah: We will work. We will work every day and every single day to rebuild Syria. We have faith and we will do it.