Mayson Al Misri vividly recalls the day her brother was killed by a sniper at the height of the brutal Syrian civil war.Her family had just finished picking olives at their farm in Daraa that January day in 2013 when her younger brother, Mohamed, 28, suddenly fell into the arms of their mother, blood soaking his clothes.“He just got hit by a bullet and his stomach exploded,” says Al Misri, 44, who was just steps behind her brother, holding his daughter’s hand. “No one knew how to do first aid to help him. We just felt so helpless.”Her brother’s death later prompted her to join the Syria Civil Defence, better known as the White Helmets for the protective head gear they wear, and devote her life to rescuing people caught up in the fighting. Under constant shelling, civilian volunteers like Al Misri — with training and funding from the international community — provided medical aid, fixed hydro and water supplies, performed search and rescue, evacuated civilians from danger zones and even removed landmines.That humanitarian work ended last summer when she and the rest of the group, which has been credited with saving hundreds of lives, became the targets of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and needed to be rescued themselves.Now, more than a year after more than 100 White Helmet volunteers and their families were whisked out of Syria through Israel and into Jordan in a high-profile international rescue, Al Misri is slowly building a new life with her husband, Maan Alaboud, in Hamilton.But the former journalist with the Syrian Arab News Agency says she still fears for the thousands of White Helmets who didn’t make the escape and were captured by the Assad government.“Those imprisoned by the regime are always tortured and they go missing for good,” says Al Misri in her modest apartment in Hamilton, where a huge black, white and green Syrian revolution flag drapes the living room wall. “Ho ...
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