Paralyzed Syrians Create Lasting Challenges in Region With Limited Services ( Reyhanli)
(c) 2013, The Washington Post.
REYHANLI, Turkey — Most of the injured Syrians who check into the volunteer-run recovery center stay only a few weeks, maybe a month. As soon as they regain strength and mobility, they find temporary housing in Turkey or return home to fight against the Syrian regime. A line of new patients wait to take their place.
Then there are those living on the ground floor: the paralyzed children, mothers and fighters who have been here for months and probably will not leave any time soon. Their spinal cords were severely damaged by snipers' bullets, shrapnel or violent falls following a blast. In most cases, they received basic aid in Syria and then, days or weeks later, traveled to a Turkish hospital for treatment.
Now they must learn to survive in a region filled with uneven pavement, steps instead of elevators and a general lack of services for the disabled.
Here in this Turkish town, just a few miles from a Syrian border crossing, the damage of the war is measured in more than the estimated death toll of 60,000. A plan for the future of Syria will have to include caring for the thousands with serious and permanent injuries, doctors and activists say.
"I'm sure people won't forget us fighters," said Ahmad al-Zier, 31, a father of two who was paralyzed from the waist down by two bullets while fighting against government forces in Idlib, in northwestern Syria, eight months ago. "People will take care of us."
Disabled Syrians, especially those living in rural areas, have long lacked access to government-sponsored services, education or jobs, according to reports by disability advocacy groups. Data are scarce, but the World Bank estimated in 2002 that Syria had between 500,000 and 1.4 million disabled citizens, and that less than 5 percent of them had access to needed services.
In the past decade, the Syrian government had moved to improve its care of the disabled. But advocates say progress was slow and then stopped when the revolution began in 2011.
As the fighting has intensified during the past 22 months, doctors working in Syria say they have struggled to treat the growing number of wounded in makeshift field hospitals with limited supplies. Some of the injured journey to hospitals in neighboring countries, like Turkey, where they are usually treated and quickly released.
To help them, a group of Syrian expatriates started an 80-bed recovery and rehabilitation center in a former girls' dormitory in Reyhanli in August. Patients stay free of charge, and the center covers its $100,000 monthly expenses with donations, plus some money from aid organizations, according to the center's executive manager, Yasir.