The end of 2023, for many of us around the world, has been a heavy one. This holiday season, joy and peace have been harder to come by.
Last week, the boiler in my house broke down; we have no heat or hot water. My family has been dressing in layers and heating up water on the stove and in electric kettles for bathing. I didn’t think much about heat and hot water before I lost it.
We don’t think much about our health, safety, and happiness until it is threatened.
December 20th was International Human Solidarity Day. I don’t think it’s an accident that the international community has chosen to, “highlight the need for collective effort, cooperation, and mutual understanding to solve complex challenges such as poverty, hunger, climate change, and conflict,” at the peak of the holiday season, when most of us are celebrating with gifts and grand meals and spending time with our loved ones. This time of plenty presents an opportunity for us to be more grateful, charitable, and compassionate. The world is calling on us to contribute some of our wealth, time, and energy to protecting the most vulnerable members of our global community.
Everywhere we turn, on our television screens, while scrolling social media, in conversations at our schools and workplaces, even on street corners in our cities, human suffering and tragedy is more visible than it has ever been before. It is brutal and disruptive in its reminders of our immeasurable privilege.
In thinking about the pressing humanitarian crises befalling people all the way from Palestine to Sudan, and far beyond, I find myself experiencing bouts of powerlessness and dejection.
But there are heroes embroiled in the worldwide struggle for human dignity and justice that can lift our spirits. They replenish our energy and restore our hope.
Dr. Hammam Alloh, Nephrologist, Gaza
Since October 7th in Gaza, at least 21,320 people have been killed and 55,603 others have been injured. It is widely accepted that the death toll is an underestimate, as there are still bodies buried under the rubble.
Those who survive face not only the ongoing threat of airstrikes and violence, but also suffer from lack of access to food, clean water, and healthcare on account of the total blockade imposed on October 9th. Humanitarian aid has slowed down significantly since then, further crippling a civilian population of 2.3 million people, of whom half were already relying on food assistance from the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) before October 7th.
At that time, approximately 500 humanitarian aid trucks per day were allowed into Gaza. This number has shrunk significantly since then. This, combined with the rapidly escalating humanitarian crisis, has led to widespread hunger and the outbreak of disease.
Not included amongst the cargo in the humanitarian aid trucks that have managed to enter the strip is the one thing that has the most direct impact on whether or not someone who is hungry, starving, weak, or injured will live or die: fuel.
Without fuel, hospitals become graveyards. Doctors become gravediggers.
Mid-November Al-Shifa Hospital, the largest medical complex in Gaza, came under siege. The facility was completely cut off from the rest of the area. Healthcare workers, who were caring for hundreds of patients and housing thousands of people that have been dispaced, came under fire. The power was cut. No one could leave. People died, and soon they had no choice but to bury them. Ashraf Al-Qidra, Gaza’s health ministry spokesman, reported that there were about 100 bodies decomposing inside.
“We are planning to bury them today in a mass grave inside the Al-Shifa medical complex. It is going to be very dangerous as we don’t have any cover or protection from the ICRC, but we have no other options, the corpses of the martyrs began to decompose,” he said on a phone call with Reuters.
Compounding the shortage of medical equipment, drugs, lack of fuel, and overwhelming patient load is the personal loss that healthcare workers in Gaza have experienced. Many have lost their homes, family members, friends, and colleagues. They are living and working in a horrifying reality, one that doesn’t allow for time to mourn the dead.
Dr. Hamma Alloh was a 36-year-old nephrologist who was founding and organising a new nephrology program in Gaza.
After October 7th, he spent days in the hospital saving countless lives before he finally went home to briefly see his family. During his visit, a missile struck his parents’ home, killing him and his father.
Medical Aid for Palestinians reports that 300 health workers have been killed since the onset of the recent assault in Gaza.
Tarek Lubani, a Canadian Palestinian emergency room medical doctor, remembers his friend Alloh and the impact of his loss on the health of society at large, telling NPR, “I promised him that if anything happened that we would take care of his family. It’s not just that I lost my friend. The Palestinians lost their future…Most of these [medical professionals] — men and women — when they get killed, it’s also the death of the programs that they lead…It’s also the death of all the patients they would have had. Also the death of a system. That’s what it means when Hammam got killed.”
In one of his final interviews, Alloh was asked why he refused to evacuate the hospital. He responded, “If I go, who will treat my patients? … You think I went to medical school and for my post-graduate degrees for a total of 14 years so [I’d] think only about my life and not my patients?”
Dr. Alloh’s response reminds me of an image I came across of a damaged whiteboard from a Gaza hospital wall. The board, normally used to schedule surgeries, was inscribed with the following words by Dr. Mahmoud Abu Najla: “We did what we could. Remember us.”
We must remember them.
Those who help us remember are those who tell their stories. Most of the news we are getting out of Gaza is coming from Gazans themselves, some career journalists like Wael Al-Dahdouh, who lost his entire family in an air raid, and others artists- turned-journalists like Motaz Azaiza, whose photography aimed to share the beauty of Gaza to the rest of the world before the onslaught of airstrikes.
In Gaza and Sudan journalists are risking their lives to document human rights violations and show us the truth.
Enaam Alnour, Journalist, Sudan
War erupted between warring military parties in April of this year following years of friction and efforts to thwart revolution and democratic movement.
The fighting has subjected people to ethnic violence, sexual violence, mass displacement. The conflict has resulted in the deaths of 10,000 people since its start. Approximately 5.5 million people have been displaced both internally within Sudan and beyond its borders to neighbouring countries.
Darfur, home to about a quarter of the country’s population of 48 million, has been a hotspot for the conflict. The region is still reeling after war and genocide ravaged its communities in the early 2000’s. Niemat Ahmadi, president of the Darfur Women Action Group, reports, “The situation in Darfur will be the worst humanitarian crisis of our modern day.”
But unlike Gaza, Sudan rarely appears in our headlines.
Journalists on the ground bear the burden of documenting the atrocities they witness when no one else will.
“I’m breathing, so I’m not dead. But am I still alive?” asks Enaam Alnour, 28-year-old independent journalist taking refuge in Chad. She previously served as a manager at the Women of Change Organization, a collective which advocates for the protection of women and children’s rights in conflict zones.
Alnour has been reporting on violence perpetrated against women, including cases of rape and murder since the onset of the war in April.
“Our organisation has been able to document the violations, killings and atrocities committed by the Rapid Support Forces and Arab tribes associated with them in El Geneina. We have gathered a lot of eyewitness evidence for these violations.” When justice is sought in the aftermath of conflict, it is the record-keeping and courageous work of people like Alnour which will lay the foundations for ethical and legal reckoning.
But Alnour paid a heavy price for her work. She is taking refuge in Chad with 100,000 other Darfur people after surviving unimaginable horror in the Western Sudanese town of El Geneina. Back in May, she was kidnapped while standing in a bakery line, knocked unconscious, and kept hostage in a locked room for days. Her kidnappers stole and destroyed her equipment including laptop and cameras, and interrogated her about the work she was doing to report on war crimes committed in the region. Alnour suffered greatly, enduring beating and sexual abuse. Eventually, she was let go, only to discover the murder of her brother and ten other family members.
She recalls what it was like at the beginning of the conflict, remembering,“I was not afraid to become a target when the war broke out. My fear was only the safety of my family”. Now, she is haunted by the consequences of her commitment to the truth.
“As journalists, we always have to pay the price for our work.”
Alnour, like many other journalists reporting from within the violent storms of conflict, has suffered greatly. Her life will never be the same.
If we start to think about the journalist as a person, as a friend, and a relative, if we truly comprehend whose right to life and safety was risked to deliver the stories we read and the images we see, we will feel that our attention is the least we can give in return. This is one way to honour what has been lost forever.
So, what can we do?
These people are heroes, right? They are brave in ways that we are not.
The truth is that people like Hammam Alloh, Enaam Alnour, and others didn’t ask to be heroes. When their homes came under fire, when the collective future of their people was threatened, they were forced into unimaginable positions, backed into impossible corners. They fought for the safety and liberation of their people the only way that they could: by using the skills and talents they already possessed.
We are writers, artists, healers, journalists, teachers, and leaders in our own communities. People like us have the power to change lives for the better.
If you still feel like you don’t have something meaningful to contribute, you should know that you have one resource that many in the trenches of these crises do not: time.
Here are some steps we can take in the new year to affirm our solidarity with oppressed people all around the world:
- Don’t look away. Suffering left unwitnessed can be erased. At the very least, we can commit ourselves to bearing witness to the plight of oppressed people around the world. By listening to their stories, reading their names, and seeing their pictures, we can play our own part in preserving their experiences, affirming their humanity, and keeping our hearts soft in response to the ongoing threat of desensitisation.
- Amplify their voices. An easy way to do this is through social media. Who do you follow? What materials are you reposting? Be more intentional about your platform.
- Donate. If you are able, make financial contributions to relief efforts and humanitarian organisations on the ground.
- Contact your elected officials. They are there to serve and listen to you. Make your opinions known to them by calling their office, writing a letter, sending an email, and encouraging those around you to do so as well.
- Boycott. You decide where your money goes. When done collectively, boycotting is an effective strategy that puts pressure on corporations to engage in more ethical labour and funding practices.
- Don’t over-consume. In solidarity with the people being exploited, make a new year’s resolution to only buy technology if you need it. Don’t upgrade-keep the same phone and laptop for as long as they are functional.
- Educate yourself and others. Read and research about the ongoing struggles around the world. Have conversations with your colleagues, friends, and family members– even if they are difficult. Listening to one another opens the door to the kind of compassion and understanding that shifts culture.
If we do these things, maybe this coming year, when we wish each other joy and peace, we can also strive to create it for one another.
