Syria White Helmets film first-aid tutorial for Ukraine rescuers

ARIHA, Syria -- In a bombed-out building in northwestern Syria's Idlib province, rescue workers from the Syria civil defence, known as the White Helmets, film a video tutorial for Ukrainian volunteers.

The video tutorial, filmed in a town hit hard by Syrian regime and Russian air strikes and shelling, includes tips gained from firsthand experience of treating casualties and braving Russia's war strategies.

Using a dummy, members of the White Helmets demonstrate how to apply bandages and tourniquets in a clip shot in the town of Ariha, where Russian air strikes are relatively routine.

The video, which offers a range of other rescue initiatives, is the latest example of how Syrians are mobilising to share with Ukrainians bitter knowledge gleaned from more than a decade of war.

This includes surviving relentless shelling, and coping with chemical attacks.

"As first responders, we believe that we can share our experiences in Syria with humanitarian aid workers in Ukraine," volunteer rescuer Ismail al-Abdullah tells the camera in English, battered buildings crumbling into the street behind him.

Al-Abdullah said Russia's targeting of schools, hospitals and humanitarian workers in Ukraine is "sadly too familiar to us", after years of similar horrors.

'We lived the experience'

In the video, he warns Ukrainian rescuers against "double strikes" in which an initial raid is followed by a second attack that hits after rescuers have gathered at the scene.

The aim of the initiative is to produce tutorials that will be translated into Ukrainian and uploaded on the White Helmets' website, he told AFP.

The content is intended to help rescuers and civilians in Ukraine deal with Russia's bombardment strategy, which it developed during Syria's war.

"We are offering this advice so that Ukrainian rescuers avoid... casualties," whether among civilians or first responders during rescue missions, he said.

Russia intervened in the Syrian conflict in 2015 on the side of the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

From besieging cities to shelling civilian infrastructure and arranging so-called "humanitarian corridors", the strategies Moscow has fine-tuned in Syria are now being deployed in Ukraine.

Al-Abdullah advised Ukraine's rescue workers to document their work using GoPro cameras "to safeguard credibility" and shield themselves from smear campaigns that have previously been used to undermine Syria's first responders.

Syrian medical student Mohamed Haj Musa, who also appears in the tutorial video, said he hopes the advice will help Ukraine's people "deal with injuries they could see at any moment".

"We lived the experience and saw the victims," Haj Musa told AFP, hoping that his experience could help other first responders "save lives".

Syrian solidarity

The White Helmets have offered staunch support for the people of Ukraine, releasing a statement reaffirming their solidarity on February 22, just two days before Russia's February 24 assault on its neighbour.

"As Syrians who have been subjected to over a decade of Russian aggression, we the White Helmets reaffirm our solidarity with the people of Ukraine and stand by their side in the face of terrorism," the statement said.

"We deplore in the strongest terms all of the acts of Russian aggression on Ukraine people," it added. "It pains us immensely to know that the weapons tested on Syrians will now be used against Ukrainian civilians."

On March 2, the White Helmets followed up with a video posted on social media in which members of the civil defence reaffirmed their solidarity with humanitarian aid workers in Ukraine and the Ukrainian people.

"The thousands of victims whom we rescued during our work in Syria are still fresh in our memory, and we cannot forget them or forget the pain they experienced," a member of the White Helmets says in the video clip.

"The people of Ukraine are living through a tragedy similar to the one that the Syrians have lived through and still face," he added.

Same tactics in Syria

On Friday (April 8), a Russian missile strike on a train station in Kramatorsk, eastern Ukraine, killed at least 57 people, including five children.

The White Helmets noted that Russia had used the same tactics in Syria, when it attacked humanitarian corridors.

"We are devastated by the news and images coming out of Bucha," the civil defence group said April 4. "Russia must be held accountable for the atrocities being committed, from Syria to Ukraine."

"The slaughtering of innocent men, women and children on the streets must be stopped."

Russia has continued to carry out air strikes in northwestern Syria.

On April 4, Russian warplanes launched eight air strikes targeting the outskirts of Safohon and Felifel villages in southern Idlib province, the White Helmets said.

Later that day, four children were killed in Syrian regime and Russian artillery shelling on the eastern Idlib village of Maret Nassan as they returned from school, the group said.