13.08.2018 / For immediate release

Manchester NGO Mourns Aid Worker Killed in Syria Air Strike

Human Appeal, one of the biggest humanitarian aid and international development charities operating from Manchester, have announced that they are mourning the loss of one of their staff members who was killed by an air strike in Syria on Friday 10th August 2018.

The deceased has been named as Inaam Alabood, who worked as a pharmacist in the Al Imaan Hospital run by Human Appeal, which helps pregnant women and children. Inaam, her husband and five of her children were killed when they were hit by an airstrike conducted by Syrian regime forces and its allies in Urum al-Kubra that claimed 37 civilian lives.

Inaam, who was 39-years-old and a Syrian national, was herself internally displaced from her home in Hama in 2015 due the Syrian conflict. However, instead of fleeing the country, she stayed and worked in a hospital in a very dangerous part of the country, to help others.

Human Appeal marked the tragedy by holding a minutes silence at their headquarters in Cheadle, Greater Manchester and all of the offices they work in across the globe at noon on Monday 13thAugust. They will also be attending an event at Westminster Abbey on Thursday 16th August that is a memorial for humanitarian aid workers in connection with the UN World Humanitarian Day

Elfatih Ibrahim, Human Appeal’s acting Chief Executive released the following statement:

“It is with great sadness that I must announce that our colleague Inaam Alabood was killed in Syria on Friday, along with her husband and her five children. She was killed by an airstrike in big Urum, Syria. Inaam was a vital part of the Human Appeal family, she worked as a pharmacist at the Al Imaan Hospital that we run in rural Aleppo. And, like when every family loses one of their own, we are in a state of mourning.

“Inaam was internally displaced from her home in Hama to Idlib 3 years ago. Inaam refused to leave Syria as she was determined to help those who were in need, like she once was. She embodied all that a humanitarian should be. She put the safety of others before her own.

“Her and her family’s death is a huge loss for Human Appeal, the humanitarian aid community and all of the world. We are all the poorer for not having Inaam working to help the people she so deeply cared about and she is irreplaceable.”

- Ends -

Notes to editors

Human Appeal (www.humanappeal.org.uk) has been one of the UK’s fastest growing charities. With a presence in 25 countries, spanning Asia, Africa, Europe, the Middle East and here at home, we help in times of crisis and we deliver sustainable development programmes in the world’s poorest nations.

Human Appeal representatives are available for interviews, please contact press@humanappeal.org.uk for more information or call Samina Taj on 07581 023 177.

Images of Inaam and her children are available here and free to use: https://flic.kr/s/aHsmkKDD5j

Footage of the aftermath attack is available here, although Human Appeal do not own the rights for it: https://www.liveleak.com/view?t=uFY8i_1534008214

Human Appeal released a report on how hunger has been used as a weapon of war during the Syrian and Yemeni conflicts in March this year, it can be found here: https://humanappeal.org.uk/media/2196280/advocacy-report-v013-final.pdf