A dangerous journeyThat morning, Avanisch and Maram al-Masri were finally given the go-ahead from the Damascus hospital director.
At ten o’clock on that Monday in early September, the two set off for Aleppo on an old Volkswagen equipped with a siren and a doctor’s bag.
Maram was driving; he knew the roads fairly well and soon they were on the M5 freeway on their way to Homs. The plan was to drive non-stop to the city of Hama, which was about halfway between Damascus and Aleppo. When they arrived, it would be late afternoon and they would fill their tank, grab a bite to eat (Maram was hoping for Fetteh) and then rest for a few hours. The next morning they would enter the western part of Aleppo, which was now under Bashar al-Assad’s militia’s control.
Up to that point, Maram thought, thin
