The humanitarian situation in the forgotten city Douma

The humanitarian situation in the forgotten city Doumaimage

29 May 2015

Douma is a small province in the suburb of Damascus. From the beginning of the Syrian revolution, Douma was an active city due to the presence of a lot of opposes for the Syrian regime in the city. However, it became under daily rocking and was dramatically affected by the war between the Syrian regime and the Free Syrian army, due to its location, in the suburb of Damascus.

Douma has been under complete sieging for more than two years. There is no water supply to the city, the electricity has been cut since 13.03.2013, there is a measures preventing food from entering the city, the thing that resulted in complete absence of basic foods like bread and wheat.

Although the humanitarian situation is getting worse everyday, a large number of civilians still live in the city.

With the food shortage and medical drugs shortage, another crisis has started. Douma now looses lives on daily basis because of hunger. Starvation also was a good predisposing factor for many diseases to spread in the city and of course, there is also drugs shortage, the things that made things even worse.

People now use herbs and old prescriptions from the alternative medicine to treat their diseases in addition to some drugs that was successfully smuggled from the sieging around the city.

In order to adapt themselves to the cut of water, people started to use manual pumps to get water from wells. They also invented a new way to compensate the loss electricity by using 12 volts Led, “Alternative power”; however, many people cannot use this source of power because it needs tools; battery, charger and a generator.

Still the biggest daily challenge for every man in Douma is providing food for his family and children

In Mosaic Initiative for Syria, we started a project called “Help Douma” to deliver food parcels for families in Douma with the collaboration of a local Community Centre in Douma

Tarek Tuma is a Syrian Artist from, Douma, he donating his artwork to help people in Douma.

You can Save Lives by buying Tarek’s paintings at:Tarek’s page on Justgiving

“Douma is a forgotten city, a ruinous heap, its people are in pain, they feel abandoned by humanity and all they need is an ear to listen to their story.” Tarek Tuma.

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