White Helmets (Syrian Civil War)

History

The rescue teams that later became SCD emerged in late 2012, when the Syrian government of Bashar al-Assad began to lose significant amounts of territory to the Free Syrian Army in the Syrian Civil War. This led to a shift in tactics in which Syrian government forces began to target opposition-held civilian communities with systematic and indiscriminate surface-to-surface and aerial bombardment by the Syrian Army and the Syrian Arab Air Force. In response, small groups of civilian volunteers from affected communities, particularly in Aleppo and Idlib, self-formed to assist neighbors injured in bombardment or trapped under the rubble of destroyed buildings. Very quickly, training, funding and support from a broad, international array of partners - including donor governments in Europe, the US and Japan; the Turkish AKUT Search and Rescue Association; and a variety of NGOs, private individuals, public fundraising campaigns, and charities - became a key factor in the development of the organisation.

Local and provincial councils joined with ARK's stabilisation consultant and ex-British Army Officer, James Le Mesurier, and AKUT to create the first training programme in early 2013. ARK would facilitate entry of volunteers to Turkey, where they would be trained by AKUT. Early training courses include trauma care, command and control and crisis management. Over the next two years, the number of independent civil defense teams grew to several dozen as graduates of the early trainings such as Raed Saleh established new centers; the national organisation of SCD was founded on 25 October 2014 at a conference of independent teams.

SCD has grown to be an organization of over 3,000 volunteers operating from 111 local civil defence centers across 8 provincial directorates (Aleppo, Idlib, Latakia, Hama, Homs, Damascus, Damascus Countryside, and Daraa). In October 2014, these self-organised teams came together and voted to form one national organization: Syria Civil Defence. As of January 2017, the SCD claims to have rescued over 80,000 people since they began to keep count in 2014 from the effects of the civil war. According to The Economist, approximately one in six SCD have been killed or badly wounded, "many by “double-tap” Russian and Syrian airstrikes on the same site as they search for bodies." The SCD was nominated for the 2016 Nobel Peace Prize and was a recipient of the 2016 Right Livelihood Award, the "Alternative Nobel Prize".

On 14 December 2016, as the Syrian Armed Forces were recapturing eastern Aleppo, SCD head Raed Saleh requested safe passage of SCD operatives to rebel controlled countryside around Aleppo. Syria Civil Defence joined the Syrian Network for Human Rights, Independent Doctors Association and the Violations Documentation Center to accuse Russian forces of war crimes in eastern Aleppo, jointly submitting a report to the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic.

Operations

SCD's stated mission is "to save the greatest number of lives in the shortest possible time and to minimize further injury to people and damage to property." Their work covers the 15 civil defense tasks as laid out in international humanitarian law (IHL); the bulk of their activity in Syria consists of urban search and rescue in response to bombing, medical evacuation, evacuation of civilians from danger areas, and essential service delivery.

The most prominent role of SCD was rescuing civilians from strikes with barrel bombs, improvised explosive devices dropped from by SAAF helicopters. Following the intervention of Russia in Syria on September 30, 2015, much of the work of SCD has been responding to attacks by Russian Air Force attack aircraft.

As well as providing rescue services, SCD undertakes repair works such as securing damaged buildings and reconnecting electrical and water services, clearing roads, teaching children about unexploded ordnance hazards, as well as firefighting and winter storm relief.

Sometimes described as the most dangerous job in the world, SCD operations involve risk from a wide variety of war-zone threats. 159 White Helmets have been killed since the organization's inception.

As of 2015, SCD had an annual budget of $30 million provided by a mix of state donors and public fundraising. Volunteers who work full-time receive a $150 monthly stipend.

Political affiliation and funding

SCD is officially a neutral and impartial humanitarian NGO, with no official affiliation to any political or military actor and a commitment to render services to any in need regardless of sect or political affiliation. Like all NGOs operating in opposition-controlled areas, SCD negotiates humanitarian access with organizations such as local councils, provincial councils, and armed groups, with relationships varying widely from governorate to governorate.

SCD has been accused by supporters of the Syrian government and the Russian Federation of supporting foreign military intervention. In September 2014, the SCD delegation to the United Nations General Assembly argued that United States airstrikes should target Syrian government targets as well as ISIS and Al-Qaeda-linked groups. In May 2015 the head of SCD, Raed Saleh, and the head of Mayday Rescue Foundation, James Le Mesurier, met with some United Nations Security Council and European Union diplomats to argue for the enforcement of a no-fly zone over parts of Syria. The case for a no-fly zone was also made at a United Nations General Assembly side meeting in September 2015.

SDC work in close partnership with the Netherlands-based NGO Mayday Rescue Foundation. Mayday Rescue's Program Manager for Syria is Farouq Habib, who has also been described as the White Helmets' Head of International Relations.

SCD is not affiliated with the International Civil Defence Organisation, nor is it connected to the Syrian Civil Defence Forces which have been a member of the ICDO since 1972. However, as the Syrian government's civil defense organisation does not operate in rebel-held areas, and bombardment of civilian populations in Syria is overwhelmingly perpetrated against opposition-held areas by Syrian government forces, SCD is significantly more experienced in the 15 core civil defense tasks as defined in IHL than is the Syrian government's civil defense force (which essentially functions as a conventional peacetime fire and rescue service).

Funding

SCD is supported by the aid agencies of a number of external donor governments. Initially the United Kingdom Foreign and Commonwealth Office was the largest single source of funding through Mayday Rescue Foundation. As of 2016, SCD state they are also partly funded through Chemonics, a U.S. based private international development company.

Funders now include the Canadian government Peace and Stabilization Operations Program, the Danish government, the German government, the Japan International Cooperation Agency, the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs. the New Zealand Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and the United Kingdom Conflict, Stability and Security Fund (CSSF). USAID now appears to be the largest donor, having contributed at least $23 million from 2013 to March 2016. The British government had provided £15 million of funding between 2012 and November 2015, increased to £32 million by October 2016.

"We do not hide it, we admit [that] there is funding from the USA, from the UK, from Germany, from Netherlands,” Abdulrahman Al Mawwas, the chief liaison officer of the White Helmets said in 2016.

The SCD has also received individual donations online to their Hero Fund, which provides treatment for wounded volunteers and supports their families.

Advocacy

SCD is widely cited, quoted, or depicted in regional and international media coverage of the conflict in Syria. Raed Al Saleh, the Director of SCD, has been an outspoken advocate against bombardment of civilians, addressing the United Nations Security Council and other international bodies on a number of occasions.

A UK government £5.3 million media activists programme included assisting the reporting of "White Helmets" activities across Twitter and Facebook.

The streaming service Netflix released a documentary film entitled The White Helmets on September 16, 2016. The film won the Best Documentary (Short Subject) at the 89th Academy Awards.

Notable members

A notable member in Aleppo, Khaled Omar Harrah, known as the 'child rescuer', was killed there in an airstrike in August 2016.

Another notable member is Abu Kifah, a civil defense team member who rescued another child from beneath the rubble in Idlib.

Criticism

Supporters of the Syrian government and of Russia have accused the SCD of having financial ties with American organizations that play an active role in regime change attempts abroad.

Both Russia and Syria accuse the organization of taking sides in the civil war, and on the ground being close to the Sunni Islamist militia Al-Nusra. They point to videos and pictures published on the internet; one video from 2015 shows two members of the organization carrying arms, another shows two members celebrating with members of Jabhat al-Nusra after the fall of Idlib in 2015, and another, also in Idlib in 2015, shows an SCD member claiming that they throw the corpses of Syrian government soldiers in the trash. In a fourth video from May 2015, two members of SCD retrieve the body of an individual executed by an al-Nusra Sharia court. However, while there are thousands of videos and still photographs showing the activities of SCD in the public domain – both released by the organisation itself and by third-parties – the number of videos or photographs showing SCD members involved in such events is in the single digits. The carrying of small arms for self-defense by civil defense members is permitted under IHL (though it is against SCD policy and norms) and that emergency burial of the dead is among the 15 core civil defense tasks. Of the numerous reporters who have embedded with SCD in the last four years, none has reported them carrying weapons, associating with extremist groups, or engaging in any act in violation of IHL; and in many cases SCD members have been documented honorably disposing of Syrian government dead as per their mandate.

The organisation had been accused of fabricating reports and rescues by critics, including President Assad and pro-government blogger Eva Bartlett. Both Russia and Syria accuse the organization of taking sides in the civil war. Gareth Porter has documented how a senior member of the White Helmets appeared to repeatedly give contradictory testimony to Western media outlets with regards to the bombing of a Syrian Red Crescent truck on September 19, 2016.. In November 2016, a group of White Helmet volunteers released a Mannequin Challenge video of a staged injured man being rescued. The White Helmets released a formal apology for its volunteers' actions, saying that their intent had been to "create a connection between the horror of Syria and the outside world, using the viral Mannequin Challenge."

In April 2016, on the way to receive the 2016 Humanitarian Award from the Washington DC-based group InterAction, Dulles Airport officials denied entry to Raed Saleh, the leader of the Syria Civil Defense. U.S. Customs and Border Protection did not publicly disclose why the agency prevented Saleh from entering the country. The implications of this refusal, though, are much lessened by the fact that Raed Saleh has since been granted two visas to the US (and also to multiple European states).

On 15 December 2016 Russian broadcaster RT interviewed residents, who had just left eastern Aleppo after it fell to government forces, claiming SCD operatives had stolen jewellery and only helped when cameras were present.

Furthermore, while the White Helmets often call on the Syrian Government to cease their attacks, they have rarely criticised the rebel forces.

However, many journalists and analysts who have investigated SCD reject claims of malfeasance as Russian/Syrian government disinformation; the fact-checking organization Snopes.com has reported that claims of SCD militancy or links to terrorist groups are unfounded, and multiple journalists have raised serious questions as to the credibility and government ties of individuals accusing SCD of such links. Many Western news analysts have concluded that the attacks on SCD are part of a systematic information warfare campaign by the Russian government, the Syrian government, and their supporters.