Dr. Antoine Dibs knows the streets of Aleppo like the back of his hand. Navigating the dusty, cramped and often chaotic roads, he greets familiar faces — men playing backgammon on street corners — while deftly avoiding motorbikes and tight turns to reach his patients. He climbs the unlit stairwells of apartment blocks, using his phone’s flashlight to cut through the darkness. 

The surgeon visits a longtime patient, Rita Shahoud, who greets him with a warm smile. In her apartment, her twin pre-teens offer sweets and joke about sports. After the small talk, they get to the matter: Mrs. Shahoud’s heart disease and how she is managing now that her husband has left for Europe, hoping to claim refugee status, and earn income to cover her medical bills and find a way to have his family join him.  

Mrs. Shahoud is among the many patients supported by Dr. Dibs through a health care support program sponsored by the Christian community. The initiative works through a diverse and far-reaching network of churches across Syria, its volunteers of physicians and caregivers providing financial assistance to those who cannot afford health care as well as an array of health care services, from covering medical debt and expensive medical analyses and surgeries to providing daily medications, emotional support and regular health check-ins.

While patients are often church members, aid is offered to anyone in need, regardless of creed.

The decade-long effort began during the 14-year civil war that devastated the lives of millions of Syrians. It has helped around 1,500 Syrians each year, working through eparchies in urban and rural areas.

After his visit with Mrs. Shahoud, Dr. Dibs calls on Gila Asadouhi, a piano teacher, whose mother recently underwent knee replacement surgery, partially funded by the network. They chat about how her mother’s mobility has improved, how she has regained some independence, and how the procedure has lifted the spirits of everyone in the household. These moments — small victories in difficult times — are the rewards keeping him going.

Later, the physician visits Magi Azar, a widow in her 50s battling breast cancer. Although she continues to work, the cost of her mastectomy and ongoing treatment have pushed her to the financial brink. With support from the Maronite Church and the Aleppo chapter of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, she receives debt relief and medical care overseen by Dr. Dibs. Ms. Azar says she has found community in women’s support groups organized through the Maronite community.

“They give me the strength to keep going,” she says. 

The health care program is one of several initiatives the Society of St. Vincent de Paul runs in collaboration with parishes in Aleppo, involving education, psychosocial support and health care.  

“People are trying to adapt. They’re feeling lost and have a big feeling of uncertainty about the future.” 

One of its biggest initiatives in Aleppo, where it has been active for more than 50 years, is a home for seniors. Tucked behind the local Melkite Greek Catholic church, the home offers a refuge to senior citizens, many of whom no longer have kin in Syria, a haven filled with caregivers who tend to their charges with love and compassion. During the war, the Society of St. Vincent de Paul provided transportation for injured people and prostheses for amputees.  

Gilberte Janji, who works at the seniors home and greets its residents with familiarity and warmth, says the Society of St. Vincent de Paul supports 450 families in the Aleppo area. Ms. Janji anticipates the needs will continue for the near future. 

“This is a prolonged crisis,” adds Alain Ayoub, who volunteers to manage the books for the Maronite archeparchy’s health care programs in Aleppo.

He says the need for health care remains staggering and unrelenting, but he sees the Christian community’s role as unwavering. 

“As members of the church, we cannot say that we cannot help,” he says. “We must help.”  

While on paper Syria has a public health system, for lack of funds it failed to provide adequate care for the country’s population even during the pre-war years. For most Syrians, exorbitantly priced private care became the only option. Many went without health care, especially after the war devastated the country’s fragile health care infrastructure.

According to a review of 38 Syrian hospitals by the World Health Organization (WHO) in June 2012, only 50 percent were fully operational throughout the country, “due to lack of staff, equipment and medicine.” War exacerbated the staff shortage, as up to 70 percent of the nation’s health care workers fled the country, according to WHO estimates.

These factors not only hampered the treatment of the war wounded, but also of those needing treatment for other health concerns, including chronic or congenital conditions. The war and lack of access to health care services resulted in almost six million Syrians — more than one-quarter of the population — with permanent disabilities.

Staggering inflation and a lack of economic opportunity, compounded by international sanctions, have caused the cost of health care to skyrocket. Dr. Dibs, a surgeon, estimates open heart surgery, which cost about $2,500 before the war, soared to $6,000 during the civil war. The cost of treatments — major or minor — became unaffordable for a large portion of the population. According to the United Nations Development Program, poverty in Syria rose from 33 percent in 2010 to 90 percent in 2024.  

Bashar al-Assad’s government fell on 8 December 2024, after a surprise 12-day offensive by the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Syria is slowly emerging from years of isolation after U.S. President Donald Trump met with the new Syrian leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, at a political summit in Saudi Arabia in May. The U.S. president committed to pulling down the sanctions the United States had imposed to punish the Assad regime for war crimes.

Syrians took to the streets to celebrate, aware of how the sanctions had trickled down into their daily economic realities, from low daily wages to fuel scarcity and the prohibitive cost of diabetes medication. On 30 June, the U.S. president issued an executive order revoking a series of previous executive orders implementing sanctions. This followed the U.S. Congress introduction of legislation to repeal the 2019 Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act.

While keeping their hopes alive that the situation will improve, internecine violence — the targeting of the Alawi community (to which the Al-Assad family belongs) along the coast in March; a suicide attack on the Orthodox parish church of Mar Elias in Damascus on 22 June; and clashes with the Druze community in the southern region of Sweida in July, which killed more than a thousand people — has dampened the enthusiasm of many Syrians, especially members of its diverse but vulnerable religious mosaic.

Yet, glimmers of hope remain.

Akram and Rajaa Abdallah live in a bright apartment in Homs adorned with rosaries and pictures of their children and grandchildren. Blocks away, buildings lie in ruins after the brutal siege of the city that lasted from 2011 to 2014. One of their daughters, a civil servant earning just $10 a month, was trapped in the besieged area of the city for months. With no income, the family depended on the church, which helped fund Rajaa’s thyroid surgery and her and Akram’s vision treatments.

Sitting beside Melkite Greek Catholic Father Edwar Karam, Rajaa describes how their local parish has offered more than medicine. Their grandchildren are enrolled in catechism classes and other programs to keep them occupied and involved, even amid the seemingly unending instability and stress of war.  

“The church made us strong,” says Rajaa, adding “the most important thing is the feeling of community for the kids.”

The Blue Marists, a lay Catholic organization, has supported the work of the Marist Brothers in Aleppo since their founding in 2012. The 30 volunteers, led by Marist Brother George Sabè, gained their nickname for the blue T-shirts they wear as they assist people in need.

Since the war began, says Brother George, the mental health of members of the community they serve has declined, becoming more fragile after the magnitude 7.8 earthquake in 2022 left thousands of people dead and displaced.  

According to the WHO, nearly 20 percent of the population in northwest Syria — about one million people — was living with mental illness last autumn, but the area only had two psychiatrists and 78 doctors on hand. Brother George says an increasing number of people are seeking help.

“The war made people confront [the fact] that their futures and livelihoods are very unknown,” he says.  

“They had and have an accumulation of fear: from the war, from the pandemic, from the earthquake.”  

The Blue Marists, with external support including grants from CNEWA, provide individual and group counseling to people, ages 3 to 60, of all religions and ethnicities. These sessions aim to help beneficiaries build resilience and hope for their future. 

“As members of the church, we cannot say that we cannot help. We must help.”

Psychologist Bajat Azrie, who oversees the Blue Marists’ mental health programs, recounts some success stories — from teens orphaned by the war who now volunteer in their communities to a cancer patient who said her support group had helped her feel loved and uplifted at the end of her life. The Blue Marists have recorded greater success through group counseling.  

“People are trying to adapt,” he explains. “They’re feeling lost and have a big feeling of uncertainty about the future.” 

Building community and bridging interfaith divides are at the heart of the approach of church groups with vulnerable populations. Father Jihad Youssef, head of the monastic community of Deir Mar Musa Monastery, north of Damascus, describes how neighbors from nearby al-Nabk, a small, predominantly Muslim city that faced intensive fighting in 2013, seek him out to share their struggles. They also receive assistance from the Christian community for medical bills.

Prior to the war, Deir Mar Musa accepted up to 50,000 visitors per year, primarily other Syrians from different religious communities curious to learn more about Christianity and the history of the medieval church, carved into the desert rockface. When the war stopped the flow of international visitors and all but eliminated international travel, the health care program allowed the monastic community to continue its mission, albeit on a smaller scale, of making meaningful connections with Muslim neighbors.

The heart of Deir Mar Musa’s mission is to promote not just interreligious coexistence, but a joyful embrace between all religious communities of the Middle East. Father Youssef says these moments of offering tea and comfort embody the very heart of Christ’s teachings.

Father Youssef believes the people of God are fulfilling the call of the Gospel “to be a bridge among communities” in their service to all Syrians, including in the provision of basic medicines for the most vulnerable, Christian or not.

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