“I registered with many charities but nobody helped,” said Sama, a 37-year-old mother of five. “I heard that Caritas can help with prosthetic limbs. They referred Amal to a hospital. It took less than a week.”
Sama lives in East Aleppo after fleeing Hama, another Syrian city caught in war. “Amal was just a baby. She was sleeping when a mortar shell fell. I ran to her. The ceiling had come down. There was blood all around her,” she said
At the hospital, doctors said that Amal’s leg was badly damaged. “I promised to sell everything to pay for surgery to save it,” she said, but the leg had to be amputated.
Amal (front) with her mother and siblings.
Sama’s husband is a soldier, often away from home. She has brought up the children mostly alone. “Every time Amal moved, blood came out. Life was very difficult,” she said.
The family moved to East Aleppo a few months ago to be near her husband. It was there that they met Magida Tabbakh, a local Caritas worker. “They called us from the hospital. Magi had talked to them,” said Sama. “They referred me to the Red Cross. We started the physiotherapy. After that they gave us the prosthetic leg.”
Having spent all her life unable to walk, Amal, now 5, isn’t losing any time. She plays with the other children in the street, walks to school, is constantly climbing, swinging and having a lark. “In the physiotherapy centre, there were bars she could grab to walk. She somersaulted over them. She is a gymnast,” said Sama. “When I say tell her to obey me she says not now I have two legs.”