Syrians smuggling food, medicines into Homs

Aleppo Shocked by the desperate plight of civilians in the besieged city of Homs, citizens from other parts of Syria are risking their lives to smuggle in food and medicines.

People from Damascus and Aleppo told The Daily Telegraph of the secret operations to bring aid to those trapped in the bombardment. Sana, 31, an Aleppo resident who has taken it upon herself to help, said medicines had to be hidden on the journey to avoid punishment by the regime for helping the opposition. "I travel by public minibus, hiding small amounts of medicines and money at the bottom of my bag," she said.

The road from Aleppo to Homs is strewn with checkpoints of the much feared Mukhabarat intelligence service. Stopping every vehicle, they compare identity cards against the now extensive list of people wanted for joining the Syrian opposition. Convoys of buses carrying Syrian troops are seen on the highway, along with military refuelling vehicles. Tanks are stationed strategically on bridges and in scrubland.

"If [the Mukhabarat] found out, they would arrest me for helping the terrorists. But these are civilians," said Sana, the mother of a nine-year-old boy. "They think anyone who opposes the government is a terrorist, so now Syria is a nation of terrorists." Noora, 26, has made the perilous journey nine times.

"I spoke with a man who for the past 15 days says has only had crisps to eat," she said. "All the buildings were shaking from the shelling. Families are trapped four or five to a house without any food." People in Homs were collecting rain water in buckets for lack of anything to drink, said witnesses. As supplies in the shops run out, and access to Baba Amr, the rebel stronghold in the city, becomes, in Sana's words, "mission impossible", locals are trying to survive with what pitiful goods are left. As well as bringing what aid she can.

Sana works hard in Aleppo to raise awareness of the suffering. "People don't believe the violence happening there. State television says these are foreign forces attacking, and residents here don't believe foreign news channels. They don't know that it is their own government doing this," she said.

Tank shells

In a perilous attempt to prove the reality, Sana entreated a Homs resident to film her standing in a street as mortars and tank shells smashed into buildings around her. "I show this video to colleagues at my work, and to friends and their families. They were horrified by what they saw and slowly they are beginning to support the opposition."

Underground activist networks from the capital are working to organise supplies in bigger quantities. A man who called himself Mohammad said: "I have 40 main sources in Damascus who give us medicines. Many are doctors and sympathetic residents who buy the medicines with their own money. To take the goods we go off road, through fields and dirt tracks to avoid checkpoints," said Mohammad.

"We hide the medicines under other less illegal supplies." Reaching the field hospitals, once inside, the war-torn districts can be lethal. Snipers in high buildings shoot at anyone on the streets below. This part of Homs has become known as "death street".

"We ran across the rooftops to avoid moving along ‘death street'," said Mohammad. "I had a backpack full of medicine, and carried two more. I threw them forwards each time before jumping to the next building. I could hear bullets smacking into the sides of the walls as snipers tried to shoot us. When I arrived they called me Father Christmas."