The humanitarian catastrophe in Syria is growing as the world continues to turn a blind eye to the fighting and the violence, with the number of children now needing humanitarian assistance up to 4.3 million.
"We received a little girl with critical injuries; we could do nothing but wait for her to die because we didn't have the equipment or the medicines. Till now I can't remove her face from my mind," said one health worker identified in the report only as Anas.
"The extent of the decline in Syria's health system is demonstrated in many horrific ways, including children having limbs amputated because the clinics they present to don't have necessary equipment to treat them," said the report, which paints a gruesome picture of the dire health care crisis.
And once eradicated, polio is making a comeback in Syria with 80,000 children now carrying the virus.
Even polio, which was eradicated across Syria in 1995, is now being carried by up to 80,000 children across the country. This figure, the charity said, is so high that medical experts have raised concerns about a potential international spread of the virus.
This is in addition to the number of children killed directly by the fighting. And this is in addition to the millions of refugees who have been forced to flee Syria.
A new report by Save the Children (PDF) details the horror in even grimmer detail. Besides Polio, there are many other health issues that are going untreated.
Since the outbreak of war three years ago, it is probable that several thousands of children have already died as a result of greatly reduced access to treatment for life-threatening chronic diseases like cancer, epilepsy, asthma, diabetes, hypertension and kidney failure.
Most hospitals have been destroyed and most doctors have fled the country thanks to the violence.
Across Syria, 60% of hospitals and 38% of primary health facilities have been damaged or destroyed, and production of drugs has fallen by 70%. Nearly half of Syria’s doctors have fled the country: in Aleppo, a city which should have 2,500 doctors, only 36 remain.
This is what happens when both sides would rather kill the entire Syrian population rather than sit at the table with the other side. And health workers are coming under attack from the fighting forces.
The few remaining facilities struggle to cope with the large number of patients who need treatment. Health workers, medical staff and patients, including
children, have come under attack either en route to or inside medical facilities themselves. Homes are being used as makeshift hospitals, even turning living rooms into operating theatres.
Certain units are firing on aid workers even during truces.
The truce was violated on Saturday, leaving an aid worker wounded, according to Khaled Erksoussi, the head of operations at the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
At least nine Red Crescent and U.N. vehicles were trapped in Homs for several hours after dark when explosions struck on Saturday, but the team managed to leave shortly before 8 p.m. GMT, leaving behind two damaged trucks.
After all, how many divisions does the Red Crescent have?
The Yarmouk refugee camp has been particularly affected, with that camp's situation going viral on Twitter.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group located in the region, confirms at least 63 people have died from complications related to starvation and lack of medicine. In a video that has since gone viral, an elderly man (shown below) explained the difficulty of finding food. When asked when the last time he ate was, the man replied: "I can't remember."
Over 45,000 people in Yarmouk were without food as of January 24th.
And some parts of Syria are extremely difficult to vaccinate.
Syria’s Ministry of Health excluded the predominately rebel-held province eastern province of Deir Ezzor — where polio broke out this year — from a 2012 vaccination campaign, insisting that most residents had fled the violence and outbreak of disease, Reuters reported Tuesday.
Hundreds of thousands of people remain, however, and at least 15 children have contracted polio, the World Health Organization announced in November. Public health experts and local doctors say the government’s failure to vaccinate citizens in the province contributed to polio’s reemergence there.
And in a new report released by Amnesty International today, it accuses the Syrian government of engaging in war crimes.
The report highlights that government forces and their allies have repeatedly carried out attacks, including air raids and shelling with heavy weapons, on civilian buildings such as schools, hospitals and a mosque in Yarmouk. Some of the areas attacked had served as shelters for people who have been internally displaced by the conflict. Doctors and medical staff have also been targeted.
“Launching indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas, leading to deaths and injuries, is a war crime. To repeatedly strike a heavily populated area, where the civilians have no means of escape, demonstrates a ruthless attitude and a callous disregard for the most basic principles of international humanitarian law,” said Philip Luther.
“Syrian forces are committing war crimes by using starvation of civilians as a weapon of war. The harrowing accounts of families having to resort to eating cats and dogs, and civilians attacked by snipers as they forage for food, have become all too familiar details of the horror story that has materialized in Yarmouk,” said Philip Luther.
Yarmouk has had its power cut since April 2013. And the world continues to turn its back on Syria.