Paul Conroy and the Peoples Convoy to Syria

   The People’s Convoy: A Children’s Hospital for Aleppo

British photographer Paul Conroy in Syria (Image reproduced courtesy of Paul Conroy)

On 22 February 2012 during the Syrian uprising, Paul Conroy was on assignment for the The Sunday Times with journalist Marie Colvin, the British photographer was injured while covering events from the Syrian city of Homs, a stronghold of Syrian opposition forces. The building where he and other journalists were based was shelled by Syrian government forces. Marie Colvin and French photojournalist Remi Ochlik were killed in the attack,  Conroy was injured along with another journalist, French reporter Edith Bouvier of Le Figaro. Conroy suffered leg injuries in the attack and was subsequently smuggled out of the city and across the Syrian border to Lebanon. He wrote a book about his experience called "Under the Wire - Marie Colvin's Final Assignment". Since then he has been recouperating in the relative quiet of Devon.

Paul's book about his experiences in Syria

Now he feels it is "Time to turn words into actions", one of his very good friends is Dr Rola Alkurdi Hallam, "cousin to one of my rescuers and the doctor famous for treating the victims of the infamous barrel bomb attack where hundreds of children were filmed, their flesh hanging from the bone in a scene from what could well have been a zombie apocalypse."

Paul and Rola are planning and raising funds for a "Peoples Convoy" to Syria to deliver seriously needed medical equipment. 
 
The last children’s hospital in besieged Aleppo was destroyed by airstrikes just last month. But people are coming together to take action. On the 17th December, a group of doctors will drive a convoy from London to the Syrian border with enough supplies for a new children’s hospital. From there, local aid organisations will get it to doctors in Syria so they can start work. They’re asking for our help to fund this mission and support the incredible job that medics do every day in Syria.

  In the video above Rola Alkurdi Hallam talks to Channel 4 news about the Peoples Convoy.

Paul remembers; "Five years ago laying in the shattered remains of what had, only minutes earlier, been the Baba Amr media centre in Homs, Syria. Next to me lay the shredded corpses of my friend and Sunday Times colleague Marie Colvin and the young French photographer, Remi Ochlic. We had been reporting from the besieged town, and at that time the estimated death toll was 8000, that figure now stands at nearly half a million. I am alive today because of the bravery of dozens of young, desperate and very brave civilians. Most of them died rescuing me. 
For five years now I have had to listen to the shallow, half hearted words of politicians (the few exceptions know who they are), who, for whatever reasons, have failed to halt the murderous onslaught of the Assad regime against its own people.

After the last of the hospitals was decimated by the Russians, Rola and I decided, in the words of my old friend Tony Benn that, 'If you want something doing, do it yourself.' That's what we are doing.
We cannot rely on the broken promises or vacuous statement of intent by politicians, many busy packing to move on to greener, and often more lucrative pastures."

Paul and Rola have made this appeal: 

"We are organising the People's Convoy for Aleppo. Essentially a flat pack emergency hospital to treat the children of Aleppo, who now have no emergency hospitals at all. We are free of any government or official funding and are relying on the inherent sense of humanity most of us carry within. We need volunteers, media attention, celebs to raise awareness and people to travel either the full length of the convoy, one stage, or even one day to give us a good send off. We owe the maimed, starving, traumatised victims of the Assad/Putin onslaught so much, this seems the least we can do. So help us please, if need be Rola and I will deliver it ourselves, I suspect though there are enough decent, moral minded people out there for that not to happen.
Please check out the links on how to help. Join us in the people's convoy. In twenty years time you can look your kids in the eyes and say, ' I tried', that's all we are asking. 

Thank you all,
Paul and Rola x"

The Peoples Convoy intend to raise the approx £90,000 needed for the Children’s Hospital through crowd-funding. They need to raise a further £20,000 towards the costs of the convoy. 

The convoy will leave on the 17th December and start in the UK and travel overland through France, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Turkey. The convoy will take 5 days to reach the Turkey-Syria border. When the convoy reaches the Turkey-Syria border it will be dis-assembled and handed over to IDA. They will then transfer the hospital resources through known routes and channels to mitigate the risk of remaining in convoy. Convoy chaperones will return home from Turkey.

The logistics of the operation will be handled by Across the Divide. They have 20 years experience of working around the globe, from remote projects in Mozambique to the BBC’s recent Children in Need Rickshaw Challenge.

If you want to volunteer, donate or get ivolved you can contact Cando, the organisation behind the Peoples Convoy by emailing: rola@candoaction.org

Or check out the links below to find out more about the Peoples Convoy and Cando:

https://youtu.be/BVWUsUlkefE https://act.thesyriacampaign.org/donate/peoples-convoy/
http://www.candoaction.org