Tomorrow…. The fifth round of polio campaign in Syria.

Tomorrow…. The fifth round of polio campaign in Syria.
Polio team in Syria aims to launch the fifth round of the mobile polio vaccination tomorrow morning on Saturday, May in the liberated areas of Deir al Zour, Raqqa, Hasaka, Aleppo, Idleb, Hama and Lattakia.

The fifth round is one of six rounds in which the same children are vaccinated with vaccinating children who were not vaccinated in the previous round.
Officials of this campaigns seek to end polio in Syria after it emerged recently in Syria especially in Deir al Zour.

1.25 million Children have been vaccinated during the first round, 1.4 million children in the second, 1.41 million children in the third and 1.44 million child in the fourth. It is likely that the number of vaccinated children during the fifth round will exceed 1.44 million children.

On the other hand, and within logistic preparation frame of the fifth round, the staff sought to check refrigerating set by which the vaccine is moved in addition to the readiness of groups to overcome difficulties they faced in the previous round.

Delegates of the team have received vaccines assigned for the fifth round from the directorate of health in Gaziantep- Turkey where the team seeks to procure vaccination from the Turkish ministry of health and the Turkish Red Crescent.

It is worth mentioning that polio team came by combining the efforts of the ACU, local councils and a group of local and international non-governmental organizations under the logo of “End Polio in Syria”. The number of volunteers in the team is about more than 8,000 volunteers with the participation of more than 200 doctors.

 

Armed Opposition’s Indiscriminate Attacks in Aleppo

Since the Syrian army entered Syrian cities in mid-2011, most cities have been divided between regime-controlled areas and armed opposition-controlled areas. Syrian city inhabitants are the primary sufferers of this division. This division is present in Aleppo, which is divided into Eastern and Western sections, and in the Damascus region, with damascene suburbs and the area surrounding Gota primarily under armed opposition control, and the province’s center and capitol under regime control.

The regime has arbitrarily dropped barrel bombs on neighborhoods outside of their control, destroying property and killing and wounding large numbers of civilians.  In response to this, armed opposition groups are bombing areas under regime control (in Damascus and Aleppo), using poorly-directed mortar shells and homemade explosives, all with high margins of error. Opposition groups’ shelling may cause less destruction than that of the regime, but they still qualify as indiscriminate attacks—in breach of international law.

The Syria Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC) works to record evidence of these violations and collect the names of these victims. In pursuit of this objective, the SJAC has held meetings with witnesses and victims’ families in regime-controlled areas in Aleppo and Damascus, in order to document the opposition groups’ indiscriminate shelling operations. These operations involve indiscriminate shelling and missile attacks on civilian areas, allegedly with the aim of targeting regime security forces, the military, and secret police staying in these areas.