Sappers of the Russian Armed Forces destroyed an empty cave in Syria's Idlib province, where militants had set up a field hospital adapted for even complex operations. This large medical facility was one of the most well-equipped among those discovered by Russian servicemen in the country, Colonel Roman Bessmertny, head of the engineering troops of the Russian Armed Forces grouping in Syria, told reporters.
"There was a modern hospital in this cave, made by means of mechanization and fully equipped both to receive outpatients and to carry out heavy operations. The equipment of the hospital could accommodate up to 100 people," Bessmertny said.
According to him, the cave was equipped for two years by the relatively small but extremely violent Jaish al-Izza group, known for its religious radicalism and refusal to negotiate with both official Syrian authorities and other illegal armed groups. The hospital had been receiving the sick and wounded since 2015, and the fighters left it when they retreated in 2019, taking out most of the equipment, tools and medical supplies. Some of the property was burned by the militants, and some was abandoned. Now the cave is deep behind the Syrian army, a few dozen kilometers from the contact zone with the territory controlled by illegal armed groups, and they decided to destroy it for its uselessness.
Hospital equipment
The militants had built an artificial cave in the hillside of a high hill, with several entrances facing the mountain valley. There were no large settlements nearby, and from the air, the cave was hardly visible, with a high-voltage power line running right beside it. This allowed the militants not only to keep the location of the hospital a secret for a long time, but also to connect it to a centralized electricity supply, abandoning the diesel-powered generators that are usually used in such underground fortifications.
The militants used heavy tunneling equipment to tunnel the cave, which covers a total area of several thousand square meters. The hospital's main entrance was reinforced with concrete walls and pillars, while the corridors and inner rooms were lined with concrete and tiled with marble. The hospital was equipped with all the necessary utilities, with running water, sewerage, ventilation systems, and even internet access. Doors, sanitary facilities and furniture remained inside.
Medical equipment was found among the property left by the militants, including parts of artificial lung ventilation machines, many medical gowns, gloves and masks, drip chambers and equipment for blood transfusions, and also medicines and dressings. Nearby are several other small caves that housed guards as well as cattle to feed the medics and the wounded.
The engineers explain that despite the enormous cost of such a facility, the militants deem the costs acceptable. There were equipped hospitals in the area under their control in Idlib, but they attracted too much attention. Air reconnaissance would have detected activity around them quickly, so in order to protect their doctors and treat even the seriously wounded, the hospital was set up underground.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Creative Commons
Based on materials from TASS