Dr. Nehad Abdulmajeed thought he had seen the worst human struggling of his profession as a surgeon in Syria. In 2016, he survived the siege of Aleppo, which left hundreds lifeless or crippled within the midst of a civil struggle.

After town fell to authorities forces, Dr. Abdulmajeed retreated to a city referred to as Al Atarib, within the nation’s northwest, the place he labored in a hospital dug deep underground to guard it from relentless Russian and Syrian bombardments.

“Our hospital has all the time been crammed with tragedy,” he stated in a telephone interview from his working room. However the carnage he and his workers have seen this week, from a completely totally different enemy, was of a scope he had by no means encountered.

A whole bunch of casualties from Monday’s earthquake, which was centered close by throughout the border with Turkey, have arrived this week at his hospital from the Al Atarib area, and plenty of had been already lifeless once they reached the hospital. Workers members say they’d counted 148 our bodies on the hospital since Monday.

“Since Monday, the our bodies haven’t stopped coming,” stated Dr. Abdulmajeed, 33, one in every of 4 medical doctors within the subterranean hospital generally known as the Cave. “Some arrive with out heads. Others with out limbs.”

After weathering greater than a decade of civil struggle, Syrian medical doctors discover themselves caught in the midst of a contemporary humanitarian disaster after the earthquake, with rescue efforts obstructed by the placement of the quake zone, which incorporates government- and opposition-controlled lands in Syria.

That has meant a determined scramble to save lots of individuals trapped within the particles of collapsed buildings within the hope of taking them to hospitals just like the one in Al Atarib.

“Persons are digging by the rubble with their fingernails to achieve the screaming voices on the opposite aspect,” stated one physician, Murhaf Assaf, who labored within the Collapse 2018 and is in frequent contact with the workers there. He now lives in Wales.

Hospital workers members shared movies and pictures with The Instances that confirmed the lifeless, shrouded in blankets, lining the corridors. One other video confirmed a pickup, stacked with our bodies, arriving on the hospital.

“We now have cried over kids who lived by this struggle and are actually lifeless for no cause,” stated Dr. Abdulmajeed.

On Tuesday, the hospital acquired three siblings — together with Abdul Haseeb, 3 — who had survived within the rubble for 36 hours. “It’s a blessing they’re nonetheless alive,” stated Dr. Abdulmajeed, who was wanting to share what little hopeful information there was.

Dr. Abdulmajeed was sleeping together with his personal kids in a close-by village when the earthquake struck, sending tremors throughout the world. “I noticed our lives flash earlier than our eyes,” he stated. His household had huddled within the chilly for hours to attend out the aftershocks, earlier than he was capable of make his approach to the hospital and begin saving individuals.

“We saved wanting as much as the sky for jets,” stated Dr. Osama Salloum, who drove to the Cave from Idlib on Monday morning after receiving an pressing name for assist. “My thoughts was taking part in methods on me — telling me it was struggle once more.”

One boy, who regarded about 6 years outdated, died as Dr. Salloum was performing CPR. “I noticed the life go away his face,” stated the physician, who additionally operated on sufferers in the course of the siege of Aleppo. “All of the traumatic photographs from my work in the course of the struggle flooded again to me,” he added. “I felt like I used to be waking in a recurring nightmare.”

The medical doctors stated their experiences throughout wartime had ready them properly for the human toll wrought by the earthquake — particularly for the onerous decisions that such grueling work entailed.

“There have been days after we may solely avoid wasting — in case you tried to save lots of all of them, you wouldn’t be capable of save anybody,” stated Dr. Assaf, who labored within the Collapse 2018.

The hospital in Al Atarib was inbuilt 2017 by the Syrian American Medical Society, or SAMS, a humanitarian group that helps 39 medical services within the nation. Positioned near the combating on a fundamental street connecting Aleppo with town of Idlib, it was dug deep underground to evade the routine bombing and shelling of hospitals by Russian and Syrian forces in rebel-held areas.

However the hospital got here beneath a devastating artillery bombardment in March 2021 that killed seven sufferers and injured 15, together with 5 medical workers members, based on a joint report by SAMS and the Physicians for Human Rights.

The assault was emblematic of probably the most brutal ways employed by the Syrian regime because the civil struggle started in 2011. Physicians for Human Rights has documented 601 assaults on 400 well being care services because the struggle started.

The systemic crackdown on hospitals and clinics in opposition-held areas has devastated Syria’s well being care system, garnering worldwide condemnation and prompting as much as 70 % of Syria’s well being care employees to flee the nation, based on a 2021 report by BioMed Central in London.

“These medical doctors have been uniquely skilled by struggle — however sadly only some of them stay within the nation,” stated Dr. Assaf, who left Syria in June 2019.

“They want all the assistance they’ll get,” he stated. He added that the Cave’s workers, which had a minimum of 11 surgeons when its doorways first opened, had shrunk to a couple individuals at a time over the previous 5 years.

Vital assets, like gloves and plaster for bandaging wounds, had been already dwindling, the surgeons stated.

Within the days following Monday’s earthquake, assist to Syria has been hindered, partly as a result of the roads surrounding a serious border crossing from Turkey into opposition-held areas was broken. And assist teams in Turkey have been affected by the quake. Any extended obstruction may pose a problem for medical doctors on the underground hospital in Al Atarib.

“I believed that perhaps I had seen all the things,” Dr. Abdulmajeed stated, “however these are probably the most tragic days that I’ve seen in my complete life.”

Sangar Khaleel contributed reporting.