Syria crisis: charities told to send out strong message

Fadi Alderi unlocks a padlock and prises open the door. The charity worker has brought me to a warehouse in the Midlands.

I am amazed at what is inside. The huge space is brimming with boxes and boxes and boxes of donations. There are piles of medicines, bandages, face masks; there are operating tables, wheelchairs – even an old motorbike.

“We have had donations from all over the country, it’s really very touching. Every month we fill a container and ship it over to Syria.”

Fadi Aldairi and his wife Ola are volunteers with the charity Hand-in-Hand For Syria. It is a small organisation, formed in response to the crisis, that delivers frontline medical aid to civilians caught in the conflict.

“Many Muslims feel it is their duty to help, they see the suffering on the television and they just want to do something,” Ola tells me. “The support has been overwhelming.”

Some people donate money, others equipment, others their time. But there are also a growing number of people who want to do more. They want to actually go to Syria and help out on the ground – or even to fight.

“I would always tell them not to go and fight,” Mr Aldari tells me. “If they feel angry or frustrated, they should channel that by helping as volunteers here in this country; we always need people. “

Don’t go to Syria

Channel 4 News has learnt that the security services have asked several charities to send out a strong message to potential volunteers: do not try and get to Syria. For whilst most genuinely want to help the humanitarian effort, there is a concern that a minority want to go for entirely different reasons; to join the rebels and fight jihad.

There’s a warning that some young men are trying to use the excuse of humanitarian work as a way of gaining entry to the country. Others are going with genuine intentions, but being recruited by jihadis once they’re out there.

“They’re getting themselves together and calling themselves a charity and saying let’s do aid work,” says Khalid Mahmood, a Labour MP in Birmingham.

He tells me that he knows of several examples in his constituency where this has happened. “Three months ago, 22 boys went to Syria to do aid work, but only 10 came back.”

The rest stayed on in Syria, but it isn’t clear what they’ve been doing.

Weapons training

Mr Mahmood says: “They get taken in, they get all the propaganda, they see all the atrocities that have been taking place, so they get really emotionally wound up by the people on the rebels side, and then once they’re wound up they’re asked to stay over and support them and then once they start supporting them, they actually get into weapons training.”

Channel 4 News recently broadcast exclusive footage of the first British fighter to die in Syria. Ibrahim al-Mazwagi was a 21-year-old from London. It is understood he originally travelled as an aid worker and visited refugee camps. In one video clip, he talks of seeing the suffering of the people as one of his reasons for going to Syria.

But a number of well-established Muslim charities have told me that they dispute the allegations. “The idea that we would recruit any young man off the street and get him into charity is just nonsense,” says Shahid Bashir. “If we do take anyone, they are professional, qualified workers such as doctors.”

He works for Muslim Hands, which was established during the Bosnia crisis. It now works in over 50 counrties around the world, responding to disasters and working to alleviate poverty.

Negative publicity

It is well known and well respected within the sector. But Mr Bashir warns that the negative publicity about Muslim charities could threaten their work. Already, he is finding that less money has been donated to their Syria appeal than to other disasters.

Some people I spoke to told me they worry that if they do donate to Muslim charities, they may be viewed with suspision by the authoroties.

Mr Bashir says they have to fight negative stereotypes and face more scrutiny than other charities. His advice to anyone is to check out the credentials of anyone they’re thinking of donating to. “Do your research and know where your money is going to and how it will be spent.”

http://muslimhands.org.uk/

http://www.handinhandforsyria.org.uk/