The dead included women and children. They were waiting in line for bread in one of the few bakeries still in business in the northern Syrian town of Aleppo. News agencies reported on Tuesday that an estimated 20 people were killed and another 50 wounded in one of the latest attacks in Syria.

Since fighting broke out in Syria 19 months ago between the government and rebels resisting Bashar al-Assad's rule, over 34,000 people have been killed. Others have been displaced from their homes. The United Nations refugee agency reported earlier this week that Lebanon has more than 101,000 Syrian refugees in the country. Turkey and Jordan already have refugee populations above that level, and across the region, the number has climbed to more than 358,000.

Field hospitals have been set up in refugee camps in neighboring countries, providing medical and psychiatric care for victims of the bloodshed who have fled their homes in Syria. But medical professionals and medical supplies are lacking.

The Syrian American Medical Society (SAMS), a 14-year-old nonprofit humanitarian organization whose 1,500 members include North American medical professionals of Syrian descent in nine chapters across North America, has been pivotal in providing health care to refugees in these camps and within Syria.

SAMS has a medical base in Syria on the northern border with Turkey that is semi-liberated and under the control of the opposition. For the past three months, they have been sending medical volunteers there to do surgeries and assist in the medical relief work.

But most existing field hospitals in Syria, which SAMS has also been supporting with medical supplies, are part of an underground health care system build to support people in need.

"It's difficult for patients to go to public hospitals for safety reasons," said Dr. Zaher Sahloul, founder and president of SAMS. Dr. Sahloul is a pulmonary specialist from Chicago who has made trips to the region six times to provide critical medical care in the camps along border regions and also within Syria.

Many of these doctors, like Dr. Sahloul, cross the border into Syria "unofficially" to provide medical care in makeshift hospitals that can range from old houses to secret locations like caves, which also act as a natural defense in case the area is bombed. "These areas in Syria are shelled by fighter jets on a daily basis," said Sahloul.

SAMS has so far sent roughly 200 doctors to Syria and the surrounding refugee camps since the uprising began more than a year ago.

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