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Syrian Native Smuggles Toys to Children Trapped in Aleppo

by Hasib Danish Alikozai

   Haunted by images of terrified children living in the mist of war in
   his hometown of Aleppo, Syrian native Rami Adham wanted to help then.

   And so in 2012, he began a series of perilous journeys to smuggle toys
   into Aleppo.

   "Initially I travelled to Syria to see the situation on the ground,"
   said Adham, who lives in Finland.

   "I took with me my own savings and the toys that I collected from my
   own children." Adham, a father of six, said in a telephone interview
   with VOA.

   In the years since that first trip, Adham says he has traveled more
   than 28 times to the city he left 27 years ago.

   By his estimate, he has delivered some 20,000 toys.

   In his most recent trip in September, he spent nearly two weeks in
   Aleppo. He brings teddy bears, Barbie dolls, "Buzz Lightyears" and
   other toys that he gathers from donors worldwide. He also brings in
   some food and medicine -- whatever fits in a large cloth sack that he
   and some other volunteers, can carry on their backs. On a usual trip,
   he can bring some 80 kilograms of goods into Aleppo, he said.

   The journey from Helsinki to Aleppo is not an easy one. Adham, 43, says
   that he flies to Turkey and then takes circuitous routes, crossing the
   porous Turkey-Syria borders into Aleppo on foot. The crossings are
   illicit as only humanitarian aid workers are officially allowed to pass
   the borders towards Aleppo.

   For his safety, he relies on his contacts inside Syria to reduce
   potential risks. But Adham said he has faced serious threats to his
   life.

   "It is a war zone," Adham said. "The worst case was early this year
   when I was trapped in a place that got bombed and I was injured badly."

   In that incident, Adham said he was taken to a field hospital in Aleppo
   with a broken arm and shrapnel in his back and neck. He was later
   transferred to a hospital in Turkey for further treatment.

   His work has garnered international media attention from BBC, CNN and
   other Arabic media outlets.

   Rami Adham is surrounded by Syrian children who gather near a field
   school in Aleppo that has since been destroyed, Sept. 2015. (photo
   courtesy of Rami Adham)

   Adham leads a [1]non-profit Finish Syria association which receive toys
   from throughout Europe and also sponsors over 400 orphans in Syria. It
   runs three schools in rebel-held refugees camps near Aleppo. His
   charity organization facilitated education opportunities for over 2,000
   Syria children, he said.

   "My work started with a small circle of my friends and the circle grew
   to include neighbors," he said, adding it expanded to other cities in
   Finland and elsewhere.

   Children have been ravaged by Syria's civil war - with hundreds of
   thousands of them killed, wounded or displaced.

   "The children of Aleppo are trapped in a living nightmare," Justin
   Forsyth, the deputy executive director of the UNICEF, said recently.
   "There are no words left to describe the suffering they are
   experiencing."

   On Thursday, a top United Naions official warned that rebel-held
   eastern Aleppo could be "totally destroyed" by the end of the year.

   The U.N. Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura saidif the Syrian
   and Russian airstrikes on the city continue, "Thousands of Syrian
   civilians, not terrorists, will be killed and many of them wounded."

   Outside observers estimate there are as many as 100,000 children among
   the 250,000 people trapped in rebel-held areas of Aleppo.

   VOA's Sirwan Kajjo contributed to this report.

References

   1. http://ssyrelief.fi/fi/