A recent medical mission from Germany likely saved Mohammed Qanbat's life.

The 55-year-old from the Syrian city of Hama had open-heart surgery in April, a procedure that is rarely undertaken in Syria these days because the health system deteriorated so much during the country's 14-year civil war and because it's so expensive.

But recently, Syrian doctors visiting from Germany included Qanbat on their list of most-needy patients.

"I can't express how happy and grateful I am," Qanbat told DW.

"It's beyond words. We have waited so long for our children to come and help us," he said, referring to the fact that many Syrians fled their country during the war. "But they have not forgotten us. They returned to help us."

It remains unclear exactly how many Syrian doctors left the country during the war. According to the World Bank, around 30,000 physicians served the Syrian population in 2010, a year before the 2011 uprising that led to war. In 2020, the only year the UN collected data, less than 16,000 remained. Other medical personnel like nurses, pharmacists and dentists also fled.

Many ended up in Germany. Statistics indicate just over 6,000 Syrian doctors work in Germany, mostly in hospitals, but those are just the doctors who hold Syrian passports. In fact, there could be more than 10,000 Syrian doctors in Germany. It's just that many now hold German passports, so they are not counted as foreign staffers.

After the ouster of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad in early December last year, a number of those Syrian doctors came together to found the Syrian German Medical Association, or SGMA. It all started with a small WhatsApp group of doctors wondering how they could help, explains Nour Hazzouri, a senior physician specializing in gastroenterology who works at Helios Hospital in Krefeld, western Germany.

He told DW that the WhatsApp group became a Facebook page, and then, in........

© Deutsche Welle