Zehra Nur Düz
13 November 2019•Update: 16 November 2019
ANKARA
After losing a leg in an Assad regime bomb attack, now a Syrian teen can walk again with the help of a prosthetic leg provided by a Turkish NGO.
After coming to Sanliurfa, southeastern Turkey with his mother and two brothers, Dabbe realized his dream of walking again when Worldwide Doctors (Yeryuzu Doktorlari), an Istanbul-based group, provided him with an artificial leg.
Dabbe lost his right leg four years ago in an attack on a bus he was taking with his mother on the highway linking Raqqa and Damascus, Syria.
“We noticed three fighter planes near Tadmur -- a city in the western province of Homs. A rocket targeted us. There were 52 people on the bus,” Dabbe told Anadolu Agency.
Among the casualties, some people were badly burned, he recalled.
“I saw my leg was severed,” Dabbe said, adding that he couldn’t find the part that was lost.
“I realized my dreams thanks to Worldwide Doctors. Now I can walk without crutches, thank God,” he added.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Assad regime cracked down on pro-democracy protests with unexpected ferocity.
Hundreds of thousands of people have since been killed and more than 10 million others displaced, according to UN officials.
The Turkish government has followed an "open-door" policy for Syrians since the eruption of the bloody war.
There are over 3.6 million Syrians currently taking shelter in Turkey, many looking forward to one day returning home.
* Writing by Zehra Nur Duz
