Alma Shahhod, prominent activist dies in Amman

(Reporting by Faris al-Rifai; Translation by Yusra Ahmed)

Alma Shahhod, the well known activist, passed away yesterday after long battle with illness and injuries, in Amman, Jordan.

Alma was considered an icon for the Syrian Revolution, most activists told amazing stories about her courage and dedication in her work in relief and helping the wounded.

According to activists, Alma was injured when she was driving her car to help people in Eastern Ghouta after bombing it by Syrian regime, when she had an accident as her car turned upside down to cause her sever injuries in her back and spine.

She was transferred to Mowassat Hospital, where her identity was discovered. Activists helped in smuggling her from the hospital, fearing from getting harm by the Syrian security in the hospital, and taken to one of field hospitals in al-Ghouta.

She was pregnant at the time of injury, when she gave birth in hospital, her new born baby was kept away from her.

When her condition deteriorated, activists found no choice but to send her to Jordan, to receive treatment there, despite her rejection.

In her way to Jordan, a strange incident happened to her, where the two companions who were with her lost her over the night in desert, because she was paralysed, she used to need help in getting secretions off her throat or she get suffocated. However, because of her beliefs and courage and love for life, struggled and kept memorising Quran to distract herself from the sounds of wolves and desert animals, till her friends found her in the morning.

Mahmood Sadaka, an activist and helped Alma in getting her official paper from UNHCR described her condition saying: “she spent in Akela Hospital 9 months and she needed lots of analgesics, while her skin had deep ulcerations because of long period of lying down. She requested taking her back to al-Ghouta to die there, but her wish was not possible to fulfil, she died and buried in Amman’s graveyards, to turn off a bright story of the Syrian revolution’s icons”

Moaz al-Khtib, the former head of the National Coalition, gave his condolences to brave Alma saying: “she was one of the greatest women of the Syrian revolution and what happened to her was hard to believe. She suffered a lot, but kept fighting” He added that she helped a lot of people and many of them supported her, while other let her down and neglected her, to die after life full of courage and dignity”