War amputees walk again on Syrian-made prosthetics
DAMASCUS: Propped up by a mobility frame in a rehabilitation centre in Syria’s capital, Abdulghani carefully inches forward on two artificial legs, as he walks for the first time in over a year.
“I want to be able to stand on my own two feet again,” says the 48-year-old veterinarian, his anxious son trailing him across the busy ward.
A specialist also carefully monitors double amputee Abdulghani’s progress, as he gets a feel for the locally made prosthetic limbs.
“I’m doing my best so that I can help myself and do the job I love,” says the father-of-seven from the central city of Hama, around 190km from Damascus, preferring not to give his second name.
Tens of thousands of people have lost limbs in Syria’s seven-year conflict.
And Abdulghani is one of hundreds helped back on his feet by the Damascus physical rehabilitation centre – for free.
Patients of all ages try on artificial limbs for size, as staff bring brand new prosthetics from a nearby room.
Abdulghani lost both his legs in March last year, after being hit during shelling as he rode home on his motorbike from a job vaccinating livestock.
A doctor in Hama referred Abdulghani to the Damascus centre, which is run by the Syrian Arab Red Crescent with support from the International Committee of the Red Cross. Every day, dozens of patients arrive from across Syria, whether they have lost limbs in the war or as a result of illness.
“Right now I’m in the final phase – being fitted with artificial limbs and practising-walking,” Abdulghani says.
“In a week, I should be back on my legs again.”
A World Health Organisation report said last year that 86,000 Syrians had suffered wounds that led to amputation.
In an adjacent room, a Syrian prosthetist and his assistant put the final touches to plastic and metal limbs, supervised by an ICRC expert.
The centre started making its own prosthetic limbs in 2010, director Nadeer Kanaan says, but became more active after the civil war began the following year.
The number of amputees “increased due to the crisis, accidents, gunshots, (shell and rocket) fragments and landmines”, Kanaan says.