Abdel Kafi al-Hamdo can’t get Ukraine out of his mind. The 36-year-old Syrian spends his days following the news, tweeting messages of solidarity and teaching his five-year-old daughter Lamar how to draw the Ukrainian flag.
He says few can understand what Ukrainians are going through as unimaginable images of war, death and suffering are broadcast around the world.
“No one can understand Ukrainians,” Hamdo told CNN. “No one in the world can understand them more than Syrians.”
For Hamdo, an English teacher, watching Russia’s war against Ukraine brought back memories of the darkest days of his life — the siege of his city, Aleppo, in 2016.
Russia invaded Ukraine in late February. The war caused hundreds of civilian deaths, including dozens of children, and forced more than three million people to flee the country.
But six years before the war in Ukraine, Russia launched another ruthless military operation thousands of kilometers away, in Syria, to prop up the regime of Bashar al-Assad. Victims of that war say the scenes of Ukraine on their television screens look hauntingly familiar.
With Russia’s help, President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its allies have turned eastern Aleppo into a death box. Three hundred thousand of its inhabitants were besieged, had their food cut off and bombed until their submission in December 2016.
It was a tactic used during the war and across the country, including with alleged chemical attacks, which the Syrian government has denied. Those who survived the bombings had to leave what was left of their homes behind.
“They destroyed us; they destroyed our psyche,” Hamdo said. He remembered going to a hospital days before he left town only to find himself walking over bodies to get to his friend.
“This is what will happen in Ukraine,” he said. “What is happening in Ukraine is just the beginning.”
See images of the Russian invasion of Ukraine
Some in Syria say their country was the “canary in the mine” that the world chose to ignore. It was a testing ground for Russia’s war machine and a preview of its ambitions closer to home.
Hamdo was among a group of Aleppo residents who recounted their life under siege. They posted daily videos on social media, appealing to the international community to save them, and say their calls were ignored.
“What affects me a lot is that the world is repeating the same mistake [na Ucrânia]”, said Hamdo, emotional, to the CNN. He said it hurts to see Russia’s condemnation of Ukraine’s war as if “it was the first war [da Rússia] or the first kill”.
“I can’t even imagine why people were blind for 10 years,” he said.
In 2013, the Obama administration said the Assad regime had crossed a “red line” by using chemical weapons against its own people. But Western states decided against military intervention.
Then, in 2015, the Russian military stepped in to support a weakened Assad, turning the tide of the war in its favor. Today, Russia maintains a presence in Syria and Assad has regained control of most of the country. Several Arab countries have re-established diplomatic ties with their regime.
For Russia, the intervention had multiple advantages. It solidified his ally’s power, gave him a foothold in the region, and invaluable military experience.
The Russian defense minister even boasted of using Syria as a testing ground for the military.
“We tested over 320 [tipos de armas]in fact, we have tested all weapons except the easy-to-understand versions [na Síria]” declared Russian Defense Minister Sergey Shoigu, as reported by Russian state media in August.
Ismail al-Abdullah, a member of the White Helmets volunteer rescue group, witnessed firsthand the impact of these weapons on civilians. He was among the last group of Aleppo residents forced out of the city in 2016, having witnessed the massacre of Syria’s second city by air strikes. “Aleppo was like doomsday,” he told the CNN.
“I saw buildings crumble on top of householders and children,” he said. “In one case, 34 people were killed under a building collapsed by the bombing.” Abdullah said the building was hit by a bunker buster bomb.
Russian attacks in Syria
During its military intervention in Syria, Russia unleashed an indiscriminate bombing campaign on population centers, hitting hospitals, markets and schools.
The United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry on Syria said regime forces and Russia indiscriminately bombed densely populated areas, targeting and killing civilians.
The warring parties in the country have allowed the violation of almost all fundamental human rights and almost all war crimes, Commission President Paulo Sérgio Pinheiro said in Geneva earlier this month. “We can only hope that world leaders are doing everything they can to avoid a similar fate for Ukraine.”
Despite evidence collected by various organizations and testimonies, Russia denies having committed war crimes in Syria.
Many Syrians feel that the impunity with which Russia acted in Syria may have encouraged President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine.
“What happened in Syria is like a lesson to the world that if they did something to help the Syrian people stop Russia, maybe this wouldn’t be happening,” Abdullah said. “Russia would have stopped, first of all, in Syria, and would not have had the courage to invade Ukraine.”
The White Helmets, who know Russia’s game very well, expressed concern about the situation in Ukraine and offered tips to Ukrainian rescuers.
“Do not attend any bombing scenes until the sky is clear of warplanes,” Abdullah said, warning Ukrainians about Russia’s “double-touch” bombing.
He lost colleagues in several of these attacks, where warplanes drop bombs over an area and then attack the same area again within minutes, often killing first responders and wounded from the first attack.
“Don’t ride on open roads,” he added. “There will be snipers who will shoot you. They don’t care if you’re a civilian, a first responder or a paramedic.”
Members of Abdullah’s team gather at his station in Idlib, the last rebel stronghold in Syria. They are in a constant state of alert. The ceasefire that Russia and Turkey negotiated there in 2020 is fragile. In the second half of 2021, the UN documented at least 14 attacks by pro-government forces that killed children, including those on their way to school.
In nearby refugee camps, where waves of Syrians displaced by Russian airstrikes are now pressed against the Turkish border, they observe the war in Europe closely. Many feel that their fate is linked to Ukraine’s.
“I am following the news in Ukraine and I wish Ukraine to win the war so that Russia does not go any further,” said Umm Hussein, 48. “Here in Syria they killed us, destroyed us and displaced us, making us refugees. If Russia wins [na Ucrânia]it will go further and attack us.”
Despite their fears, there is empathy in the camps for the suffering of a war in distant Ukraine.
“We are very moved and affected by the scenes in Ukraine.” When we see children dying, we are crying for them. We feel for them as if we were experiencing the same suffering,” she said.
Source: CNN Brasil
I’m James Harper, a highly experienced and accomplished news writer for World Stock Market. I have been writing in the Politics section of the website for over five years, providing readers with up-to-date and insightful information about current events in politics. My work is widely read and respected by many industry professionals as well as laymen.
