{"id":18578,"date":"2018-10-15T15:29:02","date_gmt":"2018-10-15T15:29:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18578"},"modified":"2018-10-15T15:29:02","modified_gmt":"2018-10-15T15:29:02","slug":"year-after-daesh-lost-syrias-raqqa-holdout-hospital-awaits-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=18578","title":{"rendered":"Year after Daesh lost Syria\u2019s Raqqa, holdout hospital awaits recovery"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nRAQA, Syria: Shattered ultrasound machines and prosthetic limbs litter the hallways of Raqqa\u2019s main hospital, still gutted a year after Daesh made its infamous last stand in its Syrian heartland.
The bullet-riddled complex looms large among the sea of destroyed buildings in the northern city, once the de facto Syrian capital of Daesh\u2019s ill-fated \u201ccaliphate.\u201d
On October 17 last year, US-backed forces overran the city\u2019s final two militant holdouts \u2014 the National Hospital and nearby stadium \u2014 sealing the end of Daesh\u2019s bloody three-year reign over Raqqa.
But a year later, as other parts of the city are being slowly rebuilt, the massive hospital remains in ruins, almost haunted.
The road leading up to the entrance has been cleared of the burned corpses lying there last October, but twisted car wrecks still make for an uncomfortable welcome.
Torn-up gurneys, filthy sky-blue hospital sheets and rusted gas canisters have been dumped in the courtyard.
Bullet-riddled doors are graffitied with the phrase \u201cCLEAR, November 9, 2017,\u201d apparently marking the day those rooms were checked for mines or lingering militants.
Inside, hospital rooms are charred black from fires after air strikes.
Paint is peeling off the ceiling and the walls are lined with sand bags piled by Daesh fighters defending their final bastion.
Making his way slowly through the abandoned medical ward was Mohammad Hussein, 37, in navy trousers and a striped shirt.
Hussein is now a member of the health commission of Raqqa Civil Council (RCC), the body governing the city since Daesh\u2019s ouster, but he was once a nurse in the hospital.
\u201cYou don\u2019t feel like you\u2019re walking into a hospital. You feel like you\u2019re walking into a mound of rubble,\u201d he muttered.
The Raqqa native began working in the hospital in 2003 at the age of 22, and stayed on when Daesh captured the city 11 years later.
Hussein recalls Daesh members shoring up the hospital\u2019s defenses last year, digging tunnels and setting up blast walls as the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) closed in.
\u201cThey stockpiled medical supplies in huge amounts \u2014 serums, blood, water, power generators,\u201d he said.
After days of besieging the hospital and stadium, the SDF made a successful, lightning-fast push for both.
Since then, tens of thousands of people have returned to Raqqa, but life is still dangerous in the city.
Daesh planted a sea of mines across the city that have maimed and killed returning residents, and guerrilla-style attacks against SDF positions indicate militant sleeper cells remain a threat.
\u201cNo one lost as much as Raqqa\u2019s people when it comes to the destruction of this hospital, which used to serve hundreds of people on a daily basis,\u201d said Hussein.
Khaled Abbud Al-Hassan was one of them.
One day last year, as artillery and air strikes pounded areas near his home, a piece of shrapnel tore into his building.
\u201cIt killed my four-year-old daughter and cut my hand, so I went to get treated at the hospital,\u201d said Hassan, 60.
Inside were doctors from Azerbaijan, he recalled. Most of the Syrian staff was from Aleppo, west of Raqqa.
\u201cThey treated each other and us as well. I was there for about a week before the hospital was bombed and they told us to get out,\u201d Hassan said.
After a recent visit to Raqqa, Amnesty International said the level of destruction was \u201cshocking,\u201d with schools, homes, and medical infrastructure still ravaged.
It has slammed the US-led coalition\u2019s bombing of the city and said it should help rebuild Raqqa.
The coalition has removed rubble from main streets and demined some areas, but a rehabilitation of the hospital has still not been sponsored, said RCC co-chair Laila Mustafa.
\u201cIt needs huge funds to be restored, more than three billion Syrian pounds (almost $6 million). This excludes medical equipment, which would be high-quality and exorbitantly expensive,\u201d Mustafa said.
She told AFP that the RCC was in talks with a foreign backer over funds to partially rehabilitate one hospital ward.
The stadium, whose underground locker rooms Daesh had transformed into a prison, has fared better.
The field was partly restored after the SDF\u2019s takeover, hosting its first football match in April.
Now, laborers are building a platform and stadium seats have been painted white, with a crimson-red trim.
\u201cWe\u2019re coordinating with the RCC and the Syrian Democratic Council to rehabilitate the national stadium,\u201d said Imad Al-Himad, a contractor.
It has so far cost around 100,000 Syrian pounds.
\u201cThis was the \u2018black stadium,\u2019 and since it was repainted white, it\u2019ll be known as the White Stadium,\u201d said Himad.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RAQA, Syria: Shattered ultrasound machines and prosthetic limbs litter the hallways of Raqqa\u2019s main hospital, still gutted a year after Daesh made its infamous last stand in its Syrian heartland.The bullet-riddled complex looms large among the sea of destroyed buildings in the northern city, once the de facto Syrian capital of Daesh\u2019s ill-fated \u201ccaliphate.\u201dOn October…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":18579,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18578","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18578","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18578"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18578\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18579"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18578"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18578"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18578"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}