Profile: Muhammad Darwish goes from dentist to surgeon, operating on Syrian war victims using WhatsApp

Muhammad Darwish, 26, had been studying dentistry at a university in Syria away from his home town of Madaya, a mountainous area north-west of capital Damascus.

In 2015, Madaya became a battleground. Darwish returned, determined to help its people, but the doctor who had begun training him left in early 2016.

He was one of only three remaining medics in the besieged town when he had to conduct his first surgery.

It was an improvised operation on a Syrian war victim, and it was made possible by sending social media photos to experienced doctors abroad.

The abdominal surgery took 10 hours as he repeatedly left the room to consult volunteer doctors using WhatsApp photos.

The parents of the victim knew he was untrained, but wanted him to continue anyway.

“That conversation will stay with me forever,” Darwish said.

“To be in a position where you have to let someone without proper training operate on your son, and for me to take up that responsibility of opening up a living, breathing man on the table, it just should not have to happen.”

At every stage he took pictures of what was happening, sent them to his colleagues and awaited a response. Despite everything, the procedure was a success, and the first of many.

For his courage, commitment, and continued impact, Darwish was a finalist for the second Aurora Prize, with the selection committee co-chaired by humanitarian and actor George Clooney.

Madaya remains in difficulty, plagued by famine, and it is claimed that Darwish has been targeted and threatened by Syrian government forces on multiple occasions because of his humanitarian work.

Although working with little training and only a few others doctors, who also lack specialist training, he has always remained committed to his town.

“It was my duty to my home, to my town and its people,” Darwish said.

“These individuals were family, friends, normal people with normal lives, and this war had torn them apart.

“Imagine the raw cry of a child whose own blood is mixed with the tears on his face, and try to do nothing. I couldn’t.”

Darwish was selected as one of five finalists from 550 nominations across 66 countries. He was the only one unable to attend.

The winner of the Aurora Prize was Dr Tom Catena, the only doctor permanently based in Sudan’s conflict-riven Nuba Mountains.

The Catholic missionary physician has been credited with saving thousands of lives, working in the war-ravaged area.

He received a $100,000 grant, and a $1 million fund to donate to organisations of his choice.

This year, unlike last, when he was also nominated, he was able to attend the ceremony, with three replacement doctors sent from Armenia.

Fartuun Adan was the third finalist, a human rights worker based in Mogadishu, Somalia.

In 1996 warlords killed her husband for his peacemaking efforts. Since then, Adan has championed human rights and the rehabilitation of child soldiers across Somalia.

She has also established the first ever rape crisis centre in Mogadishu.

“We are starting to see a cultural shift,” she says.

“The tolerance of the heinous violence against women and girls is diminishing, but slowly.

“It is amazing seeing people who had lost hope become empowered.”

Jamila Afghani from Kabul has encouraged Afghanistan’s imams or religious leaders to engage on women’s rights and is deeply committed to female education.

Over 6000 imams in the deeply conservative south Asian country have participated in gender sensitivity training.

She said: “When you educate a woman, you educate an entire family. Their learnings are shared.”

The other finalist was Dr Denis Mukwege, from the Republic of the Congo, who has helped care for more than 50,000 survivors of sexual violence in a country branded the rape capital of the world.

“We need to say as an international community, rape is not acceptable in conflict. If you win a war by destroying women, you will never be accepted as a leader,” Mukwege explained.