Al-WAER /Syria/, June 26. /TASS/. A convoy of Russian military vehicles has delivered food and medicines to the Khalid al-Walid Perinatal Center located in the city of Al Waer, Homs province, liberated from militants recently.
"We have brought hundreds of food packages, medicines for the sick and medical staff at the Al Waer hospital realizing that these people need our help first and foremost," Ilya Volovitsky, an officer of the Center for Reconciliation of the Warring Parties in Syria, told reporters.
He noted that Russian doctors came with the humanitarian convoy, adding that they immediately started working with the patients in the hospital. Volovitsky recalled that the city had been liberated from militants in May after lengthy negotiations between the center’s officers and terrorists.
"Difficult negotiations lasted about a month, 12 hours per day. An agreement was eventually signed on the withdrawal of more than 10,000 terrorists from Al Waer," the officer said. Over 20,000 people - militants and their families - left the area on the agreed deadlines.
"Militants deprived the personnel of one of Syria’s largest perinatal centers of an opportunity to perform their duties for their intended purpose. They needed the hospital only to rehabilitate their wounded," the center’s chief physician, Samikh Sharbik, told reporters. He added that after militants’ departure the specialized maternity hospital is in a deplorable state. The extremists turned the upper floors into firing points and the lower ones into operating and first-aid rooms. After their departure, all the equipment was destroyed.
Nevertheless, Dr. Sharbik is confident that, with the support of the Syrian government, the perinatal center in Al Waer, which used to have 800 medical specialists before the war, will resume its work in full in about three months’ time to receive expectant mothers from the entire province. Moreover, two new pavilions will be built there.