ÇARE Doctors On Duty Providing Medical Reviews

CARE doctors have conducted medical health reviews and handed out aid in Al-Bab, Syria. In coordination with AFAD the team personally delivered the aid and relief packages sent to those in need by our generous donors. The following is an assessment by Care Doctors Coordinator, Dr Ferit Gul, and a representative from Şanlıurfa, Huseyin Cihangir, about the medical relief work they performed.

Care Doctors of Şanlıurfa and their medical health reviews

We live in a world surrounded by preconceptions. For the last two months, I have had the opportunity to provide voluntary support for the delivery of medical relief and aid in the distant regions of Kenya and in our neighbouring country, Syria. What I felt clearly throughout these activities is how Muslim are certainly aware of the plight other Muslims are facing. There is so much effort put in to save the innocent from these oppressions that it is simply impossible not to be touched by it.

As we entered the central hospital in Gharissa, Kenya, we were very suprised to see Turkish flags hanging across the walls of the hospital. We had the same experience when we went to Al-Bab, Syria, and visted the city hospital and the large bread factory producing 80,000 breads daily.

Witnessing the immense support our country provides to such people in desperate need and dedicating large budgets to these projects without expecting anything in return, gave us hope and made us proud. Contrary to what was being portrayed, Muslims weren’t alone, collectively they were feeling the pain of the ummah and reaching out. 

CARE Doctors and the AFAD Team in Al-Bab

After crossing the Al-Bab border, the AFAD team were there to welcome us as they helped our truck  – filled with food, clothing, and gifts – to pass through customs. We saw for ourselves how hard the doctors and nurses from Turkey were working in the hospital there equipped with medical facilities and resources not too dissimilar to the size and design of the great city hospitals recently built in Turkey.

When we walked in to the Halime Ana Orphanage, in which teachers were conducting classes in Arabic and Turkish, we realised how certain problems had already been addressed with foresight of those concerned, and assembled all the resources necessary to provide for essential human needs.  

The local Turkmen children here were learning their own cultures as well as familiarizing themselves with the traditions of fiqh and seerah. Passing over to the Pakistan side of the services, we saw how one of the bread factories they built was being sponsored by Turkey with tons of flour imported to produce 80,000 breads daily and handed out free to the community.

At nearly every checkpoint we saw how the local security services, some of which had put up tughras on their walls, went out of their way to help us along our journey. 

And we witnessed how, like us, there were so many charities and NGOs who upon hearing the plight faced by the ummah, were delivering the generous donations and aid that were being sent with great sacrifices from home and abroad. It made us proud to see what amazing people and nation we actually were. 

Even in the Gharissa region, we witnessed again how the MRI machines brought over from Turkey, and the training provided for its use, were serving the medical needs of local communities.

To sees a  such humanitarian investments underway despite the difficult economic times back at home – to see hundreds of thousands of dollars spent when even a hundred thousand is difficult to fund – has been so relieving to see that it revived our hopes that those in need should be provided with their basic needs deserved of a being human. If we may say, this is a truly noteworthy honour for our nation to have and our people to feel. At least, we can tell you to rest assured that there is a nation who has clearly taken on the burden of supporting the people whose wretched images we see on the news.

On that note, allow me close by beseeching the mercy of our Lord: O Allah, have the flag of our nation and the banner of Islam continue to wave and stand high over these lands...

Huseyin the Orphan from Al-Bab

It is no coincidence that those countries whose leaders can be removed and whose ‘democracies’ and governments are brought in by foreign powers have been turning a blind eye to the matters faced by the ummah around the world. The most important point for us here, is to show patience and never give up.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                   The situation was the same even decades ago.

Lastly, I cannot pass by without mentioning Huseyin the orphan from Al-Bab. When he was brought in by his teacher to have a medical check-up on his health, his teacher whispered the following to my ear: “Sir, he still believes his father has gone to the bakery and will return home!”

Dr Ferit Gul