Thank you, honourable committee chair, distinguished members of the committee, dear colleagues and witnesses.
My name, by the way, is Dr. Anas Al-Kassem. I appear before you as a chairman of the Union of Medical Care and Relief Organizations, and as a VP of the Canadian office, but also as a Canadian and Syrian surgeon who has personally conducted more than 20 medical missions into Syria during the 14 years of war, the worst man-made disaster, per the UN, since World War II. Even Gaza is not worse than Syria in terms of the numbers, by the way. It's horrible. I've been to Gaza, but Syria has been the worst since World War II.
During these missions, I worked in field hospitals along the borders of Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, and later inside Syria, in Aleppo, Idlib, Raqqa and rural Damascus. The only city I wasn't was able to get into because it was so dangerous for me, personally, was Damascus, my city.
We helped establish hospitals. At Bab Al-Hawa Hospital, one of them at the Turkish border, there were more than 1,500 surgeries being performed on a monthly basis during the war. We also created primary health care centres and the first mental health hospital in northern Syria. I had the honour of initiating the trauma registry in Syria during the war. There were over 200,000 injury cases, with their demographics confirming that 50% of the victims were women and children.
In these field hospitals, I personally treated with a lot of Canadian doctors. I had the honour to go with them to Syria. We treated thousands of patients, but the majority of them were Sunni. The truth is that the Sunni majority paid the heaviest price under the Assad regime, enduring decades of targeted slaughter, bombings and mass detention. Many of these men, women and children—I still remember some of them—died in my hands. I saw first-hand how Assad, Iran and Russia deliberately targeted hospitals, maybe for the first time in modern history, making medical care almost impossible in many areas.
Now, with the regime gone, the priority is ensuring that the minorities feel safe and included, because lasting stability requires healing all wounds, not repeating the cycle of exclusion. While there have been occasional tensions and setbacks, expected in any post-conflict transition, the overall trend—as we heard from many colleagues and witnesses before—has been towards stabilization and inclusive governance.
In January 2026, President al-Sharaa issued presidential decree number 13, restoring full citizenship to Kurds who were stripped of it in 1962, declaring Nowruz a national holiday for the first time in Syrian history, and also launching reconciliation committees for both Alawite and Druze communities.
The new government has been incredibly open to hearing from advocates and humanitarian organizations like ours. I was invited to meet President al-Sharaa in New York during the UN General Assembly in September last year. I also met the Minister for Social Affairs, our friend, a fellow Syrian Canadian, Honourable Mrs. Hind Kabawat. We talked about how our organizations can empower women in health care, expand women's care services and provide psychosocial supports to thousands of vulnerable women and children in Syria. These talks are not just symbolic. The new government is ready to listen and work. Our discussions are resulting in tangible changes.
Dear chair and committee members, as humanitarians, we must shift our focus from short-term aid to long-term development in Syria. Syria cannot build through food aid and mobile clinics alone. We must invest in health care, infrastructure, education, nursing programs, medical training and women's empowerment in health care leadership. This year I also met the Minister of Health, the Honourable al-Ali, to discuss how our organization can support strengthening the fragile Syrian health care system. This is only possible because of the funds that we are able to receive from countries like Germany—through the GIZ—the EU and recently from the GAC in Canada, as we received generous funds for the health care system and humanitarian aid.
This is where Canada can lead and is uniquely positioned to do so. Canada is a pioneer in medical education. I graduated from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada here in Ottawa in 2006. The royal college has been a global leader in competency-based medical education through the innovative CanMEDS framework and the competence by design initiative. This model has served as an inspiration for many countries in the Middle East and elsewhere. We can now transfer this valuable expertise to support the doctors and nurses who suffered for years under the previous Syrian regime.
The next decade will determine whether Syria remains dependent on humanitarian assistance or begins a genuine recovery. Investing in health care and education today will build stability, strengthen communities and support inclusive governance for all Syrians.
I thank the committee and the Government of Canada for their leadership and continued engagement at this historic moment for Syria.
Thank you.