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Sofian Sofian - Frontline
This intifada has taken a heavy toll in human life. Humanitarian aid workers such as Sofian and the drivers and medics of the three other West Bank UNRWA ambulances pay the price in personal risk and stress to do their dangerous but vital jobs. "During the first intifada it was dangerous maybe sixty percent of the time," Sofian says. "During this intifada it's one hundred percent of the time." Sofian and his medics are on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Sundays are meant to be a day off, but Sofian is frequently called out on Sundays and at night to transport the sick and injured in Nablus area, which takes in dozens of villages around Nablus and all the way up to Tulkarm. Nighttime runs are the most dangerous, especially during IDF-imposed curfews or military incursions in Palestinian areas. During one of the first IDF incursions into Balata Camp in the spring of 2002, Sofian and his medic were called to the camp around midnight to evacuate a wounded civilian. Sofian says that as he raced toward the camp, an Israeli helicopter fired two missiles, which landed directly behind the ambulance and gouged two large craters in the road. Another time that spring, Sofian and his crew picked up an UNRWA office guard to guide him to a refugee who had been wounded after Israeli helicopters shelled a car in Tulkarm Camp. As they left the camp, Sofian says that two tanks blocked the road "for twenty-two minutes exactly". The patient died in the ambulance. An hour later, Sofian and his medic were on the way to pick up another gunshot casualty when he says that IDF soldiers opened fire; the ambulance was riddled with bullet holes and an UNRWA staff member in the ambulance died. Sofian holds thumb and forefinger two centimetres apart to show by what narrow margin bullets missed the ambulance's on-board oxygen tanks.
What does he think about at times like these? "Getting the wounded out of there," he says, adding that in a crisis there is seldom time to think of anything else. He is also a trained medic, and provides emergency trauma care when necessary. Sofian, aged 40 with a wife and six children, is a bundle of sharp-eyed, tightly focussed intensity, and remembers all the worst incidents in detail. Not all his patients are intifada-related casualties, though; he transports routine cases of sickness and injury among the refugee population, and has had so many patients that he cannot remember them all, especially when they approach him years later to shake hands and thank him for helping. Sofian might earn better money working for a private ambulance company. Has he ever thought of working for a hospital or finding a quieter job? "No," he says without hesitation. "It's because of the (refugee) camps. The people there need an ambulance and can't afford a private one." If driving an UNRWA ambulance in the West Bank has its share of trauma and more than its share of danger, the job also has its rewards. For instance, the time that Sofian and his medic saw a distraught woman carrying her screaming child on the road near Balata Camp. When Sofian stopped, he discovered that the child had swallowed a piece of plastic and was choking. Sofian got the child to expel the object. "The smile on his face made the day," Sofian says. "The best part is seeing patients after they have been treated. That's better than earning a hundred-million dollars." What does his wife think about her husband's job? Sofian reflects and smiles: "She believes in God." And could he see any of his children ever becoming ambulance drivers? "La, la, la, la, (no, no, no, no)" he says with a wag of an index finger, the smile vanishing. Sofian says he has no intention of looking for another job. "It's so interesting. We rescue people. I couldn't live without it."
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