Who Are Syria’s White Helmets, and Why Are They So Controversial?

Who Are Syria’s White Helmets, and Why Are They So Controversial?
Syrian Civil Defense volunteers, known as the White Helmets, walk amidst the debris following a reported airstrike by Syrian government forces in the rebel-held neighborhood of Sukkari in the northern city of Aleppo on June 3, 2016. Thaer Mohammed/AFP/Getty Images
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A young man, wearing a white helmet and a distinctive yellow-and-blue badge on his arm, digs for four hours in the rubble of a building destroyed by a Russian-regime airstrike in Idlib Province in northwest Syria.

Finally, he sees what he’s looking for: an infant, only weeks old. He gently lifts her, still breathing, from the wreckage and takes her to an ambulance. Crying uncontrollably, he cradles her as she is treated, wounded but alert. He says, “I feel like she is my own daughter.”

Warned that Russian warplanes are overhead, volunteers in a civil defense center get out of their beds and dress, preparing to help victims at the next bombed site. As they arrive, the warplanes target them in a “double tap” attack, dropping one bomb and then another minutes later. One rescuer is seriously wounded. His colleagues wait anxiously, and suddenly he revives, insisting on lighting a cigarette. A sigh of relief as the pack is taken from him: “No smoking for you now.”

These all-too-numerous episodes often don’t end so well. Generally it’s bodies rather than survivors that get pulled out of the rubble, and the volunteers are vulnerable: 141 have been killed and many more wounded.

As Syria’s nearly six-year conflict rumbles on with no end in sight, the country’s so-called “White Helmets” continue to offer a desperately needed humanitarian response. More than 62,000 people have been rescued since the volunteer humanitarian force was formed in 2013.

So who are the White Helmets, and how did they come into being?

White Helmets work around destroyed buildings following reported airstrikes on the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus, on Oct. 5, 2016. (Sameer al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images)
White Helmets work around destroyed buildings following reported airstrikes on the rebel-held town of Douma, on the eastern outskirts of the capital Damascus, on Oct. 5, 2016. Sameer al-Doumy/AFP/Getty Images