「映画ではなく現実の日々」　シリア女性医師、アカデミー賞で脚光

【パリＡＦＰ＝時事】シリア政権軍に包囲された反体制派の支配地域。その地下病院で何千人もの治療に当たってきたアマニ・バロア医師（32）が今、アカデミー賞長編ドキュメンタリー賞にノミネートされた『ザ・ケーブ』によって脚光を浴びている。（写真はシリアの首都ダマスカス近郊東グータ地区カフルバトナの病院で、負傷した子どもを抱きかかえるアマニ・バロア医師）
　「私にとって、あれは映画ではない。私の人生であり、現実の日々だ」と小児科医のバロア氏はＡＦＰのインタビューに語った。
　１０２分に及ぶ痛ましいドキュメンタリーは、首都ダマスカス近郊のシリア反体制派が掌握していた東グータ地区で、女性医師に向けられる性差別と闘いながらも、傷ついた子どもたちの命を救おうと奮闘するバロア医師の姿を追っている。
　国連のアントニオ・グテレス事務総長は、当時の東グータを「この世の地獄」と表現した。
　「アカデミー賞にノミネートされたことで、シリアの問題にもっと光が当たり、私たちに支援の手が伸びるようになってほしい」とバロア医師は言う。
　５年にわたってバッシャール・アサド政権軍に包囲され続けた東グータ地区は、２０１８年に陥落。バロア医師は今、トルコで亡命生活を送っている。自分の家を離れざるを得なかった何百万ものシリア人同様、異国の地で心が穏やかに暮らすのは難しいと語る。
　「故郷では人々を助けることができた。爆撃や飢え、日々目にする悲劇といったさまざまな困難があっても、もっと冷静でいられた」
　トルコで暮らしていても、バロア医師の脳裏には治療した無数の子どもたちの姿が焼き付いている。「子どもたちは何も分からない…何が起きているのか、なぜ彼らは私たちに向かって爆撃するのか、どうして飢えているのか。常にそういった質問をされるが、子どもたちに説明するのはとても難しかった」

■「僕の脚はどこ？」
　ある１１歳の少年は、学校で授業中に砲撃に遭った。同級生のほとんどが負傷した。「その子は両脚を失った。麻酔から覚めるとこう聞かれた。『僕の脚はどこ？ なぜ僕の脚を切ってしまったの？』と」
　中でも最もつらい記憶は、２０１３年８月に毒ガスのサリンによる攻撃があった日のことだ。米国の統計によると、アサド政権軍によるものとされるこの攻撃で、少なくとも１４２９人が死亡。そのうち４２６人が子どもだった。「ザ・ケーブに出てくる病院では遺体を置く場所がなく、私たちは遺体を積み重ねていた」
　シリア人監督フェラス・ファヤード氏によるドキュメンタリーは、即興の誕生パーティーで、風船の代わりに膨らせた外科用手袋が破裂した時のような喜びに満ちた場面も捉えている。医療スタッフは「一つの大きな家族になり、喜びの瞬間を探そうとしていた。人間であることを再び感じられるように」とバロア医師は語る。
　病院では日々の恐怖に加え、いまだ非常に保守的な環境での性差別にも耐えねばならなかった。「最初のうちは（女性なので）私にはできないと言われた。職務上のプレッシャーがある中で、女性にも病院を運営できるということを証明しなければならかった」【翻訳編集ＡＦＰＢＢＮｅｗｓ】
〔ＡＦＰ＝時事〕（2020/02/10-12:35）

She treated thousands of people in an underground hospital in a besieged rebel enclave in Syria. Now Amani Ballour, the doctor at the centre of the Oscar-nominated documentary The Cave, is stepping out into the limelight.
But the 32-year-old paediatrician, who is still haunted by the dying and mutilated children she had to treat, hopes the attention the film has garnered will remind the world that the horror of the Syrian war is about to enter its ninth year.
For me it is not a film, it's my life, my reality, Dr Ballour told AFP before she obtained a visa allowing her to attend the Oscars ceremony in Los Angeles on Sunday.
The harrowing 102-minute film shows the doctor not just struggling to keep wounded children alive in her operating theatre in the former rebel stronghold of Eastern Ghouta, but also having to deal with sexism as a woman in charge of a Syrian hospital.
The Cave is one of two shattering films about the conflict in the running for an Oscar alongside Waad al-Kateab's Aleppo-set For Sama, which won best documentary at the Cannes film festival in May.
- 'Hell on Earth' -
The Oscar nomination will help throw more light onto the Syrian cause, and hopefully help push people to support us, said Ballour, who has been living in Turkey since Eastern Ghouta fell after a five-year siege in 2018.
The rebel enclave was described as Hell on Earth by UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres as it was being pummelled by President Bashar al-Assad's forces.
With the war still raging in Syria, half a million people have been displaced in the last two months by an offensive by the Assad government and its Russian allies in the northwest of the country.
The exodus of refugees it has sparked is one of the biggest of the war.
Like millions of Syrians forced from their homes, Ballour said that she finds it difficult to be at peace with herself in exile.
When I was at home I could help people, I was calmer despite all the difficulties, the bombardments, the hunger and the tragedies we were witnessing every day, she said.
Instead, the young woman who has just won the Raoul Wallenberg Prize from the Council of Europe for her exceptional humanitarian acts, is haunted by the suffering of her thousands of child patients.
The children did not understand anything... They always asked what was happening, why are they bombing us, why they were hungry. It was very difficult to explain to them, the doctor said.
She was particularly marked by one 11-year-old boy, Abdel Rahmane, who was in school when his class was hit by a shell, wounding most of his classmates.
- 'Where are my legs?' -
He lost his two legs. When he woke from the anaesthetic, he asked, 'Where are my legs? Why have you amputated them?'
You could not look the children in the eye when you are treating them, none of us could, she added.
The most difficult memory is of the day when the area was attacked with sarin poison gas in August 2013. At least 1,429 people, 426 of them children, were killed in the attack blamed on the Assad government, according to US statistics.
In 'The Cave' hospital there was no room left to put the corpses, we piled them up one on top of the other, she recalled.
Yet the documentary, made by the Syrian director Firas Fayyad, has moments of joy, like an improvised birthday party, when surgical gloves were blown up to serve as balloons.
The medical staff became one big family, we tried to find moments of joy... so we could feel human again, she said.
But as well as the daily horrors, Dr Ballour had to put up with the sexism in what is still a very conservative environment.
At the start, I heard them say things like (as a woman) I was not up to it. As well as all the pressures of the job, I had to prove that women were capable of running a hospital, she said.