ISTANBUL — The war being waged by the Syrian regime against its people is not simply a military campaign. The regime has also adopted starvation, as well as violence, to retake areas over which it has lost control. It has done so by blocking the entry of food, water, drugs and medical supplies, thus harming the health of civilians and causing the death of others.

In some areas, Syrians have managed to find alternatives to food deliveries, such as by planting seeds on their rooftops and cooking herbs. Finding medical assistance has remained a big problem, however, as the Damascene Ghouta area has been transformed from a fertile garden into a prison of stranded residents.

When international media outlets were prevented from entering Syria to cover the demonstrations after the outbreak of the revolution in 2011, Syrians posted videos of events on the Internet. A few years later, some activists came up with the idea of establishing an online medical clinic via Skype, the Violations Documentation Center in Syria (VDC) Medical Aid. Reem Zaitouneh, a human rights activist, VDC member and founder of the VDC clinic, spoke with Al-Monitor by phone about the clinic, founded in early 2013.

“The idea occurred to me after I saw how friends of mine in Ghouta suffered from the lack of medical personnel, a shortage of specialists capable of treating the sick and the wounded, and the severe shortage of medicines, including common ones. Add to this that my sister, the lawyer Razan Zaitouneh, was in Ghouta and suffered with the people. She described to me the miserable reality they were living, so I talked to her about the idea. She liked it and encouraged me to work on it. My goal was to alleviate the burden of the besieged people who are tired of being sick,” said Reem Zaitouneh.