A child lost his leg and displaced from his home by the Turkish invasion

Derik – North-Press Agency
Solnar Mohammed

In front of a white tent, which was previously set up to receive people fleeing the Islamic State terrorist group (ISIS), Ali is leaning on his crutch not because of his old age, but because he lost one of his legs in the attack by the Syrian opposition groups known as the Free Syrian Army on the city of Ras al-Ain (Sere-Kaniye) back in 2012.

The 10-year-old child, Ali, whom war doesn't only took one of his legs but it also displaced him from his home, this time at the hands of the Turkish military, war-planes, guns and Turkish-backed armed opposition groups, who ended up in Newroz camp in the city of Derik (Malikiya).

"I need a leg so I can play," Ali recounted his suffering to North-Press, "I feel very sad when I play with my friends, because they fear me and don't want to play with me because of my feet," the child said.

Ali resides with his family in Newroz camp, which recently received families fleeing the Turkish military invasion, he tries to help his family in some daily works, carrying with one hand the water pot and the other his crutch, and insisting on acting normally as anybody around him.

"Ali was injured when we fled our city for the first time when the Free Syrian Army attacked us; we want to go to Kurdistan Regional Government to help us installing an artificial foot for Ali," said Ali's mother, Fatima Aziz.

"We have tormented so much, our house have been looted and we have lost our youth, we want to go home and to our families," the mother said.

Ali is not the first child who has lost part of his body as a result of the war, and it seems that he will not be the last with the continuation of the Turkish military operation in the north-eastern areas of Syria, which has so far killed hundreds of civilians, and displaced more than 300 thousand civilians from their homes and towns.