Tal Rifaat massacre survival: "I was about to play when the shells fell"

 Aleppo – North-Press Agency
Zain al-Abidin Hussein/ Dejla Khalil

After a school day, Bairam was planning to start playing with his friends when he asked his brother to join him and his companions, but the shells that fell among them picked one shild after another while they were gathering to play.

13-year-old Bairam Aklo survived the massacre that befell Afrin IDPs who reside Tal Rifaat town in Aleppo northern countryside, where 10 people were killed, including eight children, but Aklo's share of pain was an eye injury, in addition to severe injuries which are still being treated.

Aklo suffers from serious injuries to his intestine and eyes, upon which he was transferred to Aleppo, he underwent two operations and installed a lens in his eye, while he still needs an operation in his other eye. His treatment continues in light of their bad financial situation and the inability of the family to pay the costs of treatment.

Bairam's mother Laila Kounish who could not accompany her son because she has tachycardia told North-Press that she did not realize that one of her children was wounded, she said: "The neighbors told me that they had taken my son to the hospital, he was seriously injured and had an urgent operation, then he was transferred to Aleppo."

"He remained in a coma for three days," Bairam's mother said, adding that his injury was in his abdomen and stomach and that the doctors sewed his stomach with 20 stitches, she said: "He is an innocent child, how can he endure this pain?"

Kounish talks about the costs of treatment and medication and says: "We paid 50 thousand Syrian pounds per night, except for the medicines that we were buying from the pharmacy with 85 thousand Syrian pounds in each batch, in addition to his need for expensive serum bags, nutrition bags and scanning."

Bairam who was accompanied by his aunt to Aleppo says: "I came from school and saw my brother and some children playing on the grass, so I joined them, I was about to play when the Turkish forces bombed the place with a shell hit us. Some of my friends died and I was wounded."

Bairam Aklo's mother calls for help in their child's treatment because they cannot afford the medical costs, and she says that they have paid more than 1,300,000 Syrian pounds so far, whereas his situation is still unstable and in need of treatment, "I call on the good people to help us because our financial situation is very bad," Bairam's mother said.