White Helmets
© SANAThis picture, provided by Syriaโ€™s official news agency SANA, shows medical equipment recovered from a field hospital belonging to the so-called civil defense group White Helmets, which Syrian government forces discovered in the town of Qal'at al-Madiq, western Syria, on May 27, 2019.
Damascus and Moscow have repeatedly accused the White Helmets, a self-styled humanitarian rescue group, of staging several provocations involving chemical weapons to justify potential foreign interventions and the presence of foreign forces in Syria.

The Syrian Army has found medical equipment supplies, some of them German-made, in a field hospital thought to belong to the White Helmets, SANA reports.

The Syrian news agency cited unnamed local sources as saying that the discovery was made in the western Hama province town of Qal'at al-Madiq earlier on Monday.

german syria white helmets
© Sputnik / Morad Saeed
Apart from medical supplies which included automated external defibrillators and surgical instruments, Syrian soldiers also uncovered gas masks with filters as well as chemical protective clothing and other equipment.

The discovery comes a few days after Russian Deputy Permanent Representative to the UN Vladimir Safronkov told a UN Security Council meeting that the non-governmental organization (NGO) White Helmets is preparing new provocations in the country's province of Idlib.

"The pseudo-humanitarian personnel of the White Helmets continues to prepare ever new provocations in order to accuse the lawful [Syrian] authorities of using toxic agents. We see what is going on", he underscored.

The Syrian and Russian governments have repeatedly blamed the White Helmets for staging a number of provocations in Syria involving the use of chemical weapons in order to blame them on the Syrian government and provide Western countries with plausible pretext for intervention in the Arab Republic.

The notorious NGO has more than once been busted staging and filming false-flag attacks, including the one last April, when the White Helmets published footage featuring doctors in Douma hospitals treating patients that had suffered from an alleged chemical attack by the Syrian army.
white helmets german supplies
© SANAQal'at al-Madiq, western Syria, on May 27, 2019.
Damascus vehemently denied the allegations, denouncing the attack as a staged provocation to justify potential foreign intervention.

The White Helmets footage prompted the developments in April 2018, when more than 100 missiles were launched by the US, the UK and France on multiple government sites in Syria, which they described as chemical weapons facilities.

They said that the strikes were in response to the alleged use of chemical weapons by Syrian authorities against the civilian population in the then-rebel-held city of Douma on 7 April of that year.

In a separate development last year, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "there is a lot of evidence proving that The White Helmets is virtually a branch of the terrorist organisation al-Nusra*, included in the UNSC's sanctions list".

"We are sure that everyone will see, sooner or later, the White Helmets' genuine face. We are urging their western sponsors to realise things as they are and stop defending those who are in actual fact provocateurs and extremists", the statement emphasised.

The Russian armed forces have been providing military assistance to Damascus throughout the conflict, while also carrying out regular humanitarian operations across the country. Russia is now assisting Syria in its post-war reconstruction and the return of refugees.