A MAN who grew up in Tavistock has helped lead a convoy which took medical aid to Syria to rebuild a children’s hospital.

Mark Hannaford, who grew up in Tavistock and Plymouth and now lives in East Devon, has recently returned from the Syrian border, where he was the logistics and security team lead of a convoy taking paediatric medical supplies to hand over to Syrian aid workers.

The convoy of heavy goods vehicles drove over 2,600 miles, passing through France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, before crossing Turkey and reaching Turkey’s border with Syria.

Mark said: ‘Dr Rola Hallam, founder of the NGO CanDo, was prompted by the destruction of the last children’s hospital in Aleppo, and wanted to use the skills and experience of the UK’s extreme medicine community to deliver a children’s hospital to Syria.

‘Public support was absolutely remarkable. The campaign had targeted raising £90,000 and we’ve now raised £229,000, which we can use to fund further convoys.

‘We took supplies for a children’s hospital in the back of a lorry and drove from the Chelsea and Westminster Hospital, London to the Syrian border where we handed the equipment to local partners.

‘We were hit by severe blizzards on the Turkish border, and it reminded us that many displaced Syrians are having to live in this extreme weather without housing or adequate medical care.

‘The government has its hands tied, but individuals working together can make a real difference on the ground in Syria.’

Mark is an honorary senior lecturer on the University of Exeter’s Extreme Medicine Masters course and the founder of Across the Divide, a logistics company specialising in event management and expeditions. The company has supported the BBC Children in Need Rickshaw Challenge and World Extreme Medicine, which trains doctors to work in austere environments, whether that be on expeditions to Everest or the poles, or in disaster response efforts across the globe and who count NASA, Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) and the Royal College of Surgeons as some of their many partners.

The war in Syria, which has now been raging for five years and is estimated to have claimed the lives of around half a million civilians, has been described by the United Nations as the ‘greatest humanitarian crisis of our era’. Of particular concern to the global humanitarian community is the apparent targeting of hospitals and medical practitioners.

You can donate at act.thesyriacampaign. org/donate/peoples-convoy