Our clothing store, or bank, that we had set up at another church in Renton has been moved to a new location that we will be able to use for the next two months. Thank you to all the volunteers who help make the move!

Our three main hero’s that made this happen – Kathy, Fareeda, and Pamela. They found the location, got volunteers and organized the setup. We had about 44 for the move and we started at 9:30am and had everything done by 2:30pm on moving day.

The new clothing bank will be open Fridays and Saturdays from 10-2 every week through January 2022. Refugees can come in to get clothing, hygiene supplies, and diapers.

We can always use vaccinated volunteers to help the families when they come to get supplies!

Location:

15255 SE Fairwood Blvd
Renton, WA 98058

SCM has been very busy the last month! Thanks to your ongoing support we have been able to do a lot for the month of Ramadan including the following: Food distribution in Jordan, food distribution in Aleppo in partnership with three other organizations, distribution of Eid gifts to refugees in Jordan, distribution of humanitarian goods here and in Jordan, and Eid presents sent to Spokane, Tri-Cities, Tukwila for the refugees resettled there.

We also took the local refugee families to Woodland Park Zoo for the end of Ramadan celebration on Sunday. We are grateful for all the support and contributions we have received over the last month. Don’t forget, though, that the end of Ramadan does not signal the end of the need for food and aid to the Syrian refugees, and we must keep this going. We thank you for your dedication to this mission!

Monday-Wednesday April 11-13
Idomeni and Polykastro, Greece
By Dr. Bill Dienst

On Monday, we experienced the aftermath of processing our own emotions, those which we had no time to digest while it was all happening on Sunday: the tear gas, the sound bombs, the rubber bullets, the stampeding people full of panic, and the adrenaline rush of it all. The morning after brings with it a hangover of somber moods, as we reflect on what it all means: the growing loss of any hope among the lingering refugees.

I have been through all these emotions before in Gaza.* First, an oddly euphoric feeling of being alive during all the excitement of being under attack, then melancholy; and then feeling depressed with Post Traumatic Stress symptoms later.

But we have no time for all that now. We must get out of bed, have breakfast and head back to the front at Idomeni. With some trepidation, we proceed with our mobile health van, and set up in our usual spot.

Monday turns out to be fairly routine. We are back to our usual old practice pattern of “Urgent Care, Light.” A lot of self limiting conditions, for which we can only provide symptomatic relief. A lot of chronic complex medical and social problems which we can do little about. There are also the few cases where antibiotics are indicated. We provide a few wound dressings for second degree burns from hot water and campfires.

It’s the usual stuff: seemingly boring, but showing the people that we still care for them, while they are feeling that most of the world has forgotten them and their current predicament. We practice the art of primary care medicine: First do no harm! Try your best not over-medicate those with emotional distress presenting with physical complaints, but try not to miss those few serious conditions that require our medical intervention either.

Tuesday is much like Monday. Our mobile clinic at Idomeni runs smoothly, and I end my day there with the usual collaboration meeting with Medecins Sans Frontieres, Medecins Du Monde and the heads from all the other smaller NGO’s like us, who are providing health care in the camps. We review our response to Mass Casualty Incidents, like the one that occurred on Sunday, and how we can collaborate better. We are trying to start a vaccination program, but are still awaiting a green light from the Greek government. There is a clinical report of a case of measles without lab confirmation. We fear preventable epidemics might break out.

Then when we least expect it, Wednesday turns out to be a much different day. When we arrive, refugees are again amassing at the fence, and a standoff with Macedonian troops on the other side is already underway. There are fewer protesters this time than there were on Sunday. A few tear gas canisters and sound grenades fly. But then from the West, we see a column of Greek riot police moving forward to the east, fully equipped with riot shields and billy clubs, creating a wedge between the refugee protesters and the fence, with the FYROM soldiers watching from the other side.

Greece and Macedonia (or FYROM, as the Greeks prefer to call it) have had their share of hostilities in the recent and distant past. But neither side is looking for an armed conflict. The economies of both countries are suffering, even before this refugee crisis began; the last thing either country needs right now is a war, provoked by this refugee crisis. This escalation could easily have happened last Sunday, especially when the FYROM helicopter weaved menacingly along the border. I am sure it was equipped with attack weapons, which could have been unleashed into the crowd below.

On Monday, the media was full of reports from the Greek government which were critical of how the FYROM government handled the situation. But nobody in either government wants any further escalation: the Greek riot forces are now advancing their wedge, to cleave the refugee forces away from the fence. People are stricken with billy clubs, and we start taking casualties at our mobile health van.

We get fewer tear gas injuries than on Sunday, but more lacerations courtesy of the Greek riot police: about 5 cases within just a few minutes. Fortunately we are equipped with staple guns, which are much quicker than using conventional sutures. We have no time to dilly-dally. We must work fast, because we don’t know when the deluge of patients will stop. First iodine to disinfect, then wash the wound with saline, then lidocaine injection, then staples: pop, pop, pop! Antibiotic ointment, sterile dressing, then out the door. Next patient please. We can’t worry about tetanus, for we have no tetanus vaccine available.

Over the following days, it appears that the spirit of the refugee people is being gradually and persistently worn down. More people are getting on buses and going to the relocation centers, which some call internment camps. I doubt we will see riots of the magnitude we saw Sunday and Wednesday again, but who knows for sure?

Dr. Bill Dienst

Sunday April 10th, Idomeni, Greece

It’s 8 am. I arrive at breakfast in our Hotel Maison, located 40 minutes South of the Greek-Macedonian border. There at the border, thousands of Syrian and other refugees remain stranded.

David Stanton, the EMT working for Medics Bergen tells me about rumours he has heard the night before: Large numbers of refugees are planning to breach the border today. I hear similar rumours from time to time, but nothing much has happened so far on my watch.

Two weeks ago, also on Sunday, there was a big standoff between the refugees, encouraged by Spanish and Italian solidarity activists. They faced off with the Greek Police in full riot gear on the railroad tracks, 100 meters from the fence. We had our trauma bags deployed, fully ready, but the situation eased off several hours later. As far as I know, no one was hurt. The activists went back to Italy and Spain the next day, and the refugees went back to their squalor and their tents. We went back to treating colds and sore throats. Several hundred refugees boarded buses and left Idomeni for “relocation centers,” while thousands others still remain here. People are becoming more stir crazy and reckless: Children walk aimlessly right in front of my car, and I must drive defensively in order not to hit them by mistake.

I head North to Eko Gas Station refugee camp and attend the weekly medical logistics meeting for our coalition of small NGO’s. My medical and humanitarian team goes directly to the medical warehouse in Polykastro to restock our mobile health van. We stock every morning to prepare first for our mid day clinic at Idomeni, and then our evening clinic back at Eko. While at the morning Eko meeting, I hear more substantial rumours: several hundred refugees left Eko at 6 am this morning and are presently walking 20 km to the border at Idomeni: They are going to try and cross. Many left with their belongings in tow, just in case they get a chance.

We finish our meeting at about 11 am; then I head North to join my colleagues to start our clinic in our usual spot in Area C at Idomeni. When I arrive, I see thousands of people, not at the usual spot of protest at the railroad tracks, but to the West: right smack dab up against the fence topped with Concertina Wire, and some are trying to cut their way through.

On the immediate opposite side of the fence are riot police and soldiers from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM). Tanks with mounted machine guns and Armoured Personnel Vehicles (APV’s) are there too. Things escalate; rocks are thrown across the fence at the soldiers, and FYROM forces respond with tear gas and sound grenades.

As I approach our Mobile Health Van located 250 meters South of the fence, I see David the EMT stumbling back, extremely sweaty, clammy and coughing uncontrollably. He has been gassed. We douse him with water, and he starts to recover. Moments later, we start receiving dozens more who have received more intense gas exposures. We start shifting into Mass Casualty Incident mode.

As we get over our initial astonishment and emotional shock, we start to get a handle on the situation. We start triaging people based on intensity of symptoms and associated trauma, related directly to the melee. Chaos and Pandemonium dominate, and now we need exert crowd control measures. We instruct our translators to start shouting loudly in Arabic: “Family members only! All others who are not hurt need to back away!”

Some people have been struck with billy clubs or rubber bullets, but 90% are simply suffering from different levels of tear gas inhalation. A few are splinted for possible fractures and we call the Greek Ambulance for one suspected low back/pelvic fracture. We send some of our volunteers forward wearing masks and equipped with 1 liter water bottles with a hole punched into the middle of the cap, so they can quickly douse those gassed and mitigate the severity of their symptoms, thus reducing their need to be carried by others to our van. Most of these cases are self limiting. One man gets IM epinephrine as we are concerned about his impending respiratory collapse, and several with asthmatic reactions receive bronchodilator therapy.

The wind suddenly shifts to the South, and all of us medical volunteers are now being gassed too. We become wounded healers. Our van pulls back 100 meters further South through trampled wheat fields to try and escape the gas.

This immediately feels familiar to me: instant recall. A feeling one never forgets if you have been tear gassed before. The burning on your face, the intense watering and stinging of your eyes; the uncontrollable sneezing and coughing. The feeling that you are going to suffocate, and then it passes, just as long as you don’t die right away: 2 minutes, 5 minutes, 10 minutes, depending on the concentration of gas you received and any premorbid conditions you might have.

It has been 10 years since my previous and only other gassing. This one occurred in 2006 at the hands of Israeli Occupation Forces in the West Bank village of Bil’in. Those weekly gas attacks there continue to this day. They involve concertina wire fences too: built to steal valuable olive groves from Palestinian villages and incorporate them into Jewish-only settlements. The tools used there and here are the same: concussion grenades, tear gas, rubber coated steel bullets and sometimes live ammunition. For me, that gas attack back then was much worse than this one; compounded by a concussion grenade that exploded right next to me, and left my ears ringing for hours.

The FYOM forces are now using rubber bullets and I am hoping it goes no further. We have previously seen a Greek helicopters, but now a FYROM military helicopter approaches, weaves in and out, then hovers menacingly over the border. I again start having quivering flashbacks, having seen American supplied Apache attack helicopters in Gaza before firing heavy shells over our heads from the sky and killing young men behind us. I am praying internally that it will not come to this.

I am sure leaders from both Greece and Macedonia do not want any further escalation either. The last thing either country needs right now is a war, given that the economies of both countries have been in the tank, even before this current refugee crisis.

We think the gas victims are waning; but they continue coming in waves. Gradually, the numbers keep getting smaller. It’s three o’clock: we pack up our van and head to Polykastro for lunch.

Dr. Bill Dienst is a rural family and emergency room physician from North Central Washington. He has extensive experience in medical exchange programs in Veracruz, Mexico and in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. He is currently on assignment with Salaam Cultural Museum, a Seattle based nonprofit organization doing humanitarian and medical relief work with refugee populations in Lesbos and Idomeni, Greece.