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The White Helmets (Arabic: الخوذ البيضاء ,القبعات البيضاء al-Ḫawdh al-bayḍāʾ / al-Qubaʿāt al-Bayḍāʾ), officially known as Syria Civil Defence (SCD; Arabic: الدفاع المدني السوري ad-Difāʿ al-Madanī as-Sūrī), is a volunteer organisation that operates in parts of opposition-controlled Syria and in Turkey. Formed in 2014 during the Syrian Civil War, the majority of the volunteers' activity in Syria consists of medical evacuation, urban search and rescue in response to bombing, evacuation of civilians from danger areas, and essential service delivery. As of April 2018, the organisation said it had saved about 114,000 lives, and that 204 of its members had lost their lives while performing their duties. They assert their impartiality in the Syrian conflict.The organisation has been the target of a sustained disinformation campaign by supporters of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Russian state-sponsored media organisations such as RT and Sputnik; the campaign has promoted false accusations connecting it with terrorist activities and other conspiracy theories. The organisation has also been criticized by the Iranian Mehr News Agency and Chinese state news agency Xinhua. An offer of assistance from the White Helmets was rejected by Kurdish-controlled areas of Syria in 2019.The co-founder of the White Helmets, James Le Mesurier, was found dead in Istanbul on 9 November 2019. Ruled a suicide by Turkish authorities, the cause of his death remains contested.