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it's time for hardtalk. welcome to hardtalk, i'm shaun ley. idlib, syria's sole remaining rebel province, is on the verge of the biggest horror story of the 21st century, so says the un's top official responsible for emergency relief. almost a million civilians have fled their homes since december. my guest today, doctor mufaddal hamadeh, president of the syrian american medical society and the medics he sends to syria are saving lives. he has been to idlib this year and seen for himself the carnage of war, and how hospitals and clinics which should give sanctuary have been bombed. after nine years of war, have we become indifferent to syria's pain?

doctor mufaddal hamadeh, welcome to hardtalk, thanks for being with us. thank you very much, thanks for hosting me. you visited idlib in late january, how would you describe what you saw there? i'm originally from idlib. i was born in idlib in 1959 — i gave away my age quickly — and i know idlib very well because i visited idlib many times after that. idlib used to be a very small, quiet, boring town. i never used to like going there with my parents. i was very excited to visit idlib this time, contrary to my previous visits. but idlib is a different place today, totally different. it transformed to a very busy city. it is very crowded.

most of the people who are in idlib now are not originally from idlib, they have been displaced from other towns and other cities, like damascus, so idlib transformed itself from almost 100,000, you know, inhabitants to almost overi million now. so effectively there isn't enough room for people to have shelter. no, actually yeah. the thing that struck me the most when i'm visiting the hospitals and the clinics we have there in idlib, and visiting people, two things — number one is the resiliency of the people, the resiliency of the medical staff and the doctors who are working hard to save lives, but something very, very sad struck me. there's a total apathy to loss, pain and suffering and death. as if pain and suffering and death became basically the norm, the daily thing in lives. my first visit to my hospital, the central hospital in idlib, the first patient i saw

was a nine—year—old child who had a shrapnel wound in his brain, had a shrapnel wound in his face and his leg. he was ok, he was going to survive, but he had no emotions. when i talked to his brother, who is a teenager, he told me that he lost five siblings that same day. two months ago he lost six siblings, including his mother, ii of his family, and he had no emotions. the story was told repeatedly to me, and i did not see any emotions from the nurses, from the doctors, or anything, so this is everyday life, this is what is happening in idlib. that last... the apathy, the numbness to pain and suffering is what i... really struck me the most during my visit to idlib. you mention you run the hospitals and clinics, what scale of the work do you provide? how many doctors are you providing? how much money are you pumping in to keep what is almost

a collapsed health system going? well, sams, the syrian american medical society, which basically started in 1998 and then transformed itself to an ngo back in 19... when the war started in syria nine years ago, we started with a budget of $750,000. in 2017, our peak budget was m2 million. currently... until recently, we provided half of the medical needs for the population in idlib, which was about 3.7 million people. so we had... last year, we had about a0 hospitals and clinics that we ran. this number continues to shrink for many reasons, one of them is we're losing territory, but most importantly our hospitals are being targeted. and just in the last week, before april, forjuly.. march the first, we had to close ten hospitals, two of them were actually badly

damaged and we had to move them to a different location, so as of today, we have 22 different facilities, including a nursing school and a midwifery school. i want to talk about the hospitals in a moment, butjust to pick up on one thing, the closure of those particular hospitals on the first of march, that was days before, a few days before russia and turkey agreed a ceasefire. has that in any way improved the situation on the ground? actually it's a disaster, it's a huge disaster, because as you close hospitals and clinics, and as many people are being displaced, about 950,000 of them right now, access to medical care becomes extremely important. not only that, we're losing a lot of equipments and medications and ways to be able to help the people. because one would have thought that the ceasefire would have been an opportunity to kind of restock and give you the opportunity to bring in supplies. yeah, i'm sorry, i misunderstood,

but the ceasefire i think was very important for people to breathe. you know, as the situation is today, the main medical needs... the main needs in syria aren't medical, it is basic life humanitarian aid like food and shelter and basic sanitary conditions. all these are missing right now. for that reason, we diverted some of the medical funds that we have to basically provide shelter and gas and... so the basics of living to help people survive. ..food and nutrition. so you're doing that on top of providing the medical help. let's talk about hospitals, you've described going in and seeing your first patient. what are the conditions that doctors and nurses and the other staff are operating in? the problem is... first, a lot of them are forced

sometimes to do work they're not trained to do because of lack of healthcare facilities and lack of healthcare personnel. they are overworked right now because of closure of other hospitals in other communities, but most importantly many of them, with the closure of our hospitals and clinics, are also becoming displaced themselves. so many of our doctors, many of our nursing staff, many of our ancillary staff have to be displaced too. despite all of this, are they still willing to come? are you having any problems recruiting? not at all, not at all. 0ur doctors actually have been unbelievably giving. i mean, one day, history will record that the syrian doctors have been, you know, the heroes of this, you know, whole situation that's the crisis of syria, under immense pressure and under the fact that they are being targeted in their hospitals

and their clinics, and many of them will go to work, to the hospital, not knowing if they're going to come back or not. can i quote you and see if this kind of chimes with the view expressed by some of your colleagues, doctor tarraf, who's working in idlib, has described in an interview with aljazeera last month what conditions are like. he said, "there was always the thought i would go to the hospital and never come back. it was mentally exhausting because we had to work under constant bombing. whenever i heard jets in the sky, i would think the hospital would be the next target. that put those of us in the medicalfield under enormous psychological pressure." just imagine, since april of last year, sams documented 95 direct attacks on hospitals. and since the war started in syria, you know, sams and the physicians for human rights documented 588 attacks on hospitals. attacking a hospital or being reckless under

international law is a warcrimes. it's a war crime, definitely. and this is what is happening. it's a warcrime. i'd like to refer you to the united nations commission of inquiry thatjust came out a couple of days ago, clearly indicating that the russians... that's a rare transparency for the united nations, by the way, i know i indicated the russians and the regime committed warcrimes. you would support that view? you have no doubt that... we know that and i can refer you to two reports by the new york times proving how the russians just recently targeted all those hospitals. you see, there's supposed to be a un organised system, the humanitarian de—confliction mechanism, i don't know who comes up with these names but it doesn't exactly trip off the tongue, but more importantly this is meant to ensure hospitals don't get hit. you said more than 90 hospitals have been hit in the course of the last

ten months or so, 11 months, so what's gone wrong? there a list of sites... there's different groups, presumably including yours, provide co—ordinates to the un and the un is supposed to provide them to the combatants and they are supposed to mark them on their maps or radars, whatever system they have, don't bomb in this area. the de—confliction process doesn't just identify hospitals and clinics but places of worship, markets, schools and all that stuff. 0ur concern at sams, being a medical organisation, we have consulted with our people on the ground about the de—confliction and many didn't want to do it because they know they were going to be targeted regardless. then we said, "ok, we know we're going to be targeted regardless whether we share the information with the un or not, but one day we hope we will have accountability". for that reason, the only reason we agreed to share the location of our hospitals with the un hoping that one day we will have accountability and, you know, just recently, as recent as last week injanuary, one of the doctors in ariha was killed, doctor za kwan tamaa. the un office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs relies

on the relief organisations to provide this information that it passes on, it has no mechanism to ensure the combatants to confirm they have received the information. again, that must make it incredibly risky that something goes wrong, even if it's not deliberate, that actually the information has come through, they don't know about the site, the co—ordinates are wrong and some of sites have been given incorrect addresses... the sites are very well known to the regime. why doesn't the the un ensure this is accurate? if you want accountability, proving that russia, the syrian armed forces, whoever received this information, is critical, isn't it?

we had an argument from the russians saying the co—ordinates were off by a few metres, and that's why one hospital in particular was hit. this is vasily nebenzya, the russian ambassador to the un, was saying that in lots of instances, he told a news conference in september, there was deliberate disinformation. it is the job of the un to ensure the co—ordinates are right. and they're not doing it. they have not done it. you must wonder why you co—operate but i take your point about accountability for years down the line. a powerful explanation of your scepticism, your understandable scepticism about the war and the risk to medics, is surely demonstrated by the fact you built a hospital in a cave. tell me about that. well, in 2016, we built the hospital in atarib and it was built from the ground up in a cave. it's called the atarib cave hospital. it's a great hospital, i just visited it, and it's state—of—the—art.

we still have some equipments that we really want to build but we are extremely proud of this hospital, it's the jewel of our work over the last few years, but unfortunately we had to evacuate that hospital and a very busy maternity hospital in atarib because of the risk of being targeted and because of the risk of the military action getting very close to the hospital. we're hoping now after the ceasefire that we're going to be able to go back to the hospital, but this was evacuated about three weeks ago. so even a cave doesn't really give you the ultimate protection. do you think, when you talk about deliberate targeting, this is an effort perhaps, simply to accelerate the end of the war? to say, everything is up for grabs, we willjust bombard wherever we can, and eventually that will cause the rebels to give up and we can bring this swiftly to an end, rather than a deliberate attempt to kill medics.

i don't think so, i really think there is a deliberate attempt to kill medics. if you follow the regime media, after they take over a town, and you look at the hospitals, they actually have no problem indicating that this is a legitimate target because they label it as, quote—unquote, a field hospital. a field hospital is still a target, a legitimate target, which is a total misunderstanding to the issue of human rights and a total disregard to the laws of war. there's no distinction at all, is there? no distinction, no. none whatsoever. but this goes to the heart of the problem with syria, that the international community seems to have vanished from the stage, you have one, two powers, russia and turkey, who seem to be determining this conflict on either side.

but even so, they are able to meet together and negotiate this ceasefire. america, france, britain, the others, are absent. what's happened ? you must, in your work, visit these countries, lobby them, try and persuade them how serious this is. take your own country of america, for example. (crosstalk). i care about syria, being from syria, but my main goal is in life as a humanitarian to protect civilians. so, my whole advocacy is for protecting civilians. please, find a way to protect civilians. i am not asking you to remove bashar al—assad, i'm not asking you to...protect civilians. and what is very frustrating to me, and to many of us in the humanitarian field is, we all vowed that this shall not happen again, after the holocaust, after rwanda, and given this different circumstances,

then information wasn't getting to the population, and here all it takes is a couple of clicks on your iphone and you will see, live, what is happening, right in front of you! 20, nearly 30 years after the balkan wars, it is a different opportunity for people to know exactly, there are no excuses, are there? no excuses. it is a failure of morality of everybody. what do americans say? let's leave aside the politicians. you do a lot of fundraising in america. obviously the syrian diaspora is very active, but does the average american know or care? we get a lot of our support from the american government. as a matter of fact, the state department after us aid, are our main supporters. the people in the state department are career diplomats. they know syria very well. they understand syria better than me and better than many of us. they are constantly monitoring the situation. but, they also face frustration,

too, because a lot of times, their hands are tied. it depends on the internal politics, international politics, and all that stuff. trump dismissed what was happening in syria as a country of sand and dust. very unfortunate statement. very, very unfortunate statement, but i'm not going to try to comment on what trump said, but that was very hurtful, from many point of views. one, is because i'm syrian, number two is because as a humanitarian you can't dismiss the killing and the suffering of people in syria as death and sand. the foremost state department official frederick hoff who advised president 0bama on syria, said to make it clear to the syrians and the russians that they would not be attacked by the us no matter what they did to civilians, has allowed them to abandon all caution. for people like vladimir putin and bashar al—assad, he says this is a bright green light to do what they wish. do you think, whatever

the intention of president trump, that has been consequence of the decision not to get involved? i'm sure internal politics has a lot to play with president trump's decision not to intervene, but to me the biggest culprit was 0bama. why? because i think 0bama had a chance to protect civilians, and the suffering of the syrian people long ago, and i think if he had taken minor action, we would not have been here. and i am not talking about changing regime or anything, i'm just talking about protecting civilians, and enforcing, you know, the red line that has been drawn in the sand, and basically just having a positive intervention into preventing civilian death. but you know as well as i do how sick americans have become of iraq. how frustrated they were that a number of us troops that were injured and killed in a war that they could not see serves any function anymore.

it would be very hard to convince people, wouldn't it? (crosstalk). as i've always said, 0bama's achilles heel at that point was the iraq war, but on the other hand, you know, he should have listened to his advisers. the people that are on the ground and the people who know syria, he went against the advice of his advisers. i want to ask you a bit, if i may, about the future. at some point, this war will come to an end. it could end horribly in idlib, because you see this huge population that is being displaced, suddenly you have got an area that should have a million people has between three and four million. nobody knows quite how many, people are sleeping under trees, sleeping on the ground. they have survived this harsh winter, those who were lucky enough to survive, but many

perished in the cold. children, we know, died in the cold. but they could be looking ahead to what the un has described as potentially the biggest humanitarian disaster of the 21st—century. it could be a bloodbath. what can we do to avoid that? or is it too late? it is already the biggest humanitarian catastrophe of the century. more than half a million people dead, over 13 million people displaced, inside and outside syria, we see that unfolding every day. i don't know what is going to happen in syria. a lot of people ask me, but all that i care about is, i want the killing to stop. i want civilians to be able to go back to their homes and kids to be able to go back to their schools, and everybody to be able to live, to take a breather. the simple right of living need to be restored to as many of the syrian people right now.

you were born in idlib, it's your home, you've been back many times over the years. what is different this time? it is a totally different place. i see a lot of misery, sadness, a lot of total chaos in there. but, on the other hand, i was very inspired to be there, i was very happy to be there for many, many reasons and one of them was that i get to meet the people who are working day and night there, who are risking their lives to save others, and to see their determination. not only that, but it was very mutual because they were very happy to see me, they said here is someone from chicago coming to see us. we thought the world had forgot totally about us, and actually this is a main message that i hearfrom many people in syria. does the world know what's happening here? how can they know and not take any action? and then, to see all of the hard work pay off, and to touch the incubators and the babies there that we have been working

so hard on to collect, that was very inspiring. don't you feel then, you are very honest in saying that president 0bama missed an opportunity. you are very honest in saying that the current administration has not got this right. you are very honest in saying that the russians are deliberately targeting hospitals and bombing them. where is your anger against president assad? because he has brought all this on these people. it's inside, i'm not denying it, but as a humanitarian organisation, i want to stick with the humanitarian work. it's not directly towards assad, it is basically, there is different frustration on different levels, and number one is the people that are committing crimes, whether it is assad, or is it russia, or is it iran, or is it hezbollah, or is it even the armed terrorist forces on the ground, or the militias, all of them, iam really, very, very mad at all of that. but my biggest frustration is at the whole world's failure. the failure of morality and the failure of the leaders of the world to be able to stand up

for the people in syria, and not only syria, because if it has happened today in syria, i can assure you that it is going to happen somewhere else down the line because we never learned our lessons. if the leaders of the world failed in recognising this fact, that this is a moral obligation to help the civilians, the defenceless, this is extremely worrisome, and makes me extremely mad, because it seems like, i can assure you it is going to happen again and again. mufaddal hamadeh, of the syrian american medical society, thank you very much. pleasure to be here.

hello. meteorologically speaking, it is now the start of spring. but of course, winter is not that far behind us and i think we will get a reminder of that in the next couple of days. cold air flooding into the uk which will bring us an area of low pressure will bring us quite a few showers on thursday, the most frequent

closest to the low centre, and across the northern half of the uk. but not ruling out some pretty sharp ones on that strong wind further south, either. and you can see the blue has flooded its way right for today, sitting in the polar air. so it will add a chill to proceedings even where we see some sunshine. after showers overnight and lunging temperatures, snow and ice a possible hazard as we start our morning commute. there could be some further falling snow through the earlier part of the day for scotland, the higher ground in northern england and for northern ireland. we should see the snow levels rising as the day progresses. some showers to the south have hail mixed in with them from time to time, squally winds here, too. it will feel chilly and the wind, while the strongest across southern scotland, northern england and northern ireland and to the north—west of wales, gusts could touch 60 miles an hour but here gusts a0 miles

an hour quite widely. thursday evening, still a lot of showers around, then we move into the small hours of friday and things start to become quieter. we pick up a northerly wind on the north sea, that will fit into showers and two eastern counties the uk, and pictures fall away across the northern half of the uk and in particular again into the small hours of friday. so ice a risk for the north of the uk on friday but our showers will shift offshore quite quickly through friday morning as high pressure starts to build into a little brief ridge in the daytime. so early showers clear, the northerly wind eases and there will be pleasant sunshine the majority for a time at least before our next low starts to approach from the south—west as we get into friday afternoon. the wind will begin to pick up once again and we will see the arrival of some further rainfall. then it's another weekend, another area of low pressure. but today, the wettest of the weather to the north, this front needs to make its way through so i suspect all of us will see some rain at some stage. quite a bit of cloud around

widely around the uk on saturday and rainfall is fairly limited. sunday definitely looks like a soggier prospect across the board.

hello. i'm sharanjit leyl in singapore, the headlines: president trump prepares to address the nation on the coronavirus pandemic and its economic impact. inside one of south korea's super labs, where they're processing thousands of samples a day in the fight against coronavirus. i'm kasia madera in london. also in the programme: in italy, new restrictions mean that all shops are closed except food stores and pharmacies. and in new york, the victims of the disgraced hollywood film producer, harvey weinstein, celebrate his jail sentence of 23 years for rape and sexual assault. voiceover: live from our studios