A Visit to the Turkish Clinic Where Students Are Fitting Syrians with New Legs

Muhammad Hamidu was 15 years old when a bomb dropped through his roof near Idlib, a city in Northwestern Syria, 59 km west of Aleppo. His right leg was severed on impact. Thirty-six people died, and it took three hours for his friend Muhammed Albush to dig him out.

It took another few hours before the crushed left leg was amputated in a desperate bid to save his life. Fortunately, it worked. Muhammad is 18 now and today he is getting fitted for double prosthetics that will allow him to stand again, if only on crutches.

Muhammad is one of thousands of Syrian children who have been, literally, torn apart by the civil war that has raged in the country for three years. The city of Reyhanli, a Turkish town that lies on the border with Syria, has become one of the safe havens for what is being referred to as the lost generation of Syrians.

There are 100,000 Syrian refugees in Reyhanli alone, nearly twice the city’s Turkish population of 60,000. Everywhere you look here there is war etched into the town— from eight-year-olds in tattered rags selling bags of tissues out of their pockets to old women’s faces crumpling under the weight of worry lines. There is no doubt that living in the shadow of one of the most brutal humanitarian crises is not an easy burden to bear.

There are pockets of hope, however. On a new road at the edge of town, past a makeshift military hospital made of shipping containers and a garbage-strewn sidewalk, a grassroots prosthetics clinic is a hive of activity in the heat of a Saturday morning. Crammed with patients and technicians, there is a steady hum of Arabic, a gentle clicking of metal joints, and even the occasional peel of laughter.

More here:

A Visit to the Turkish Clinic Where Students Are Fitting Syrians with New Legs