Emeli’s ray of sunshine for 8p-a-day street kids
BRIT Award winner Emeli Sandé has told of her “heartbreak and shock” after seeing street kids hunt scraps of food in Uganda.
The singer, 30, was in Mbale to give a lift to children who depend on the Child Restoration Outreach, funded by Comic Relief. She saw boys, one named Sowedi, 10, grab mangoes from a pile of rubbish.
Emeli said: “They were smiling and laughing, pleased with their find,
Emeli meets Sowedi
Fearless Manal Abazeed, 46, was an accountant before she joined the ranks of the White Helmets, the mercy teams credited with saving countless lives.
She is one of up to a dozen women serving with the search and rescue group, also known as the Syrian Civil Defence, as the internal war marks its sixth anniversary.
And Manal said: “We risk bombs, missiles and snipers. But the White Helmets are a beacon of hope for so many people now.”
Manal, from the south-west city of Daraa, was spurred into action after her dad Ibraheim, 65, died of cancer because heavy shelling stopped him accessing medication.
ROCKET
barely noticing the flies and wasps, and the traders throwing more waste on to the pile as they stood in it barefoot. “I couldn’t get my head around the fact children live like this.” The boys – among Uganda’s 10,000 street kids – get just 8p a day to collect plastic bottles from a tip. Red Nose Day is on March 24. Visit rednose day.com
And she is still haunted by her year-old niece’s screams following a rocket attack – when she had to choose to comfort the tot or rush a wounded neighbour to hospital.
Recounting the nightmare, she said: “I heard the bomb and then the screams.
“My niece was crying but I didn’t realise she had shrapnel in her legs because the neighbour was bleeding more and needed help.”
Manal was handed a bravery award this week by Sarah Brown, president of children’s charity Theirworld – as 340 airstrikes and missile attacks pounded her district in just 48 hours.
A double bomb attack killed 40 pilgrims and injured 120 others at a sacred site in Damascus yesterday. The blasts were aimed at buses of religious tourists from Iraq arriving at a cemetery.
dan.warburton@ trinitymirror.com Manal helping tend a patient
Manal was accountant Star with Uganda kids