Victims of armed conflict in Syria and other countries in the region started seeking medical treatment in Lebanon in 2011. By 2013, the ICRC was covering over 80% of their medical costs. Syrian and Lebanese weapon trauma victims are confronted with financial and infrastructural difficulties in their search for adequate medical care, yet the conflict is showing no signs of resolution.
The ICRC has put its 40 years of experience toward treating over 100,000 war trauma victims in an attempt to meet the growing needs of distressed individuals whose lives are at risk. The ICRC currently has 12 surgical teams and 10 surgeons working in 12 war-torn countries around the world. It also ICRC offers first aid, treatment, surgery, drugs, and much more to victims of bomb blasts, land mines, gunshots, and, in some cases, extreme and complex multiple traumas.
The ICRC has also developed numerous pedagogical tools to help local surgeons acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to treat weapon-wounded patients due to the fact that such war-specific medicine is not part of the standard university curriculum of Lebanese surgeons.
Further, one of the ICRC’s most effective and pragmatic responses to the crisis in Syria, and one of the two main projects to which EDOF is providing its support, is the establishment and management of the the Centre of Expertise in Weapon Traumatology in Al Chifae and Dar Al Zahra hospitals in Tripoli
The ICRC is also working to partner with Lebanese university hospitals to share its experience and help surgeons and other medical staff advance their approach to treating war trauma patients.