Maya is 12 years old and going to 4th grade. The feature that distinguishes her from her friends is that she doesn’t have both feet below the knee from birth.
In Syria, where the civil war has continued for more than 11 years, the scars of the war are mostly seen in children. Maya Elmeri is one of them. Maya held on to life again while smiling despite the difficulties of the war and her disability at the Orthotics-Prosthetics Center of the Alliance of International Doctors Association (AID) in Idlib.
“Even though I can't run like my friends, I at least want to walk,” says 12-year-old Maya. Maya, who was born without two legs below the knee, is smiling at life despite all the difficulties she has faced.
The Elmeri family, who had to relocate from the countryside of Aleppo to the Idlib region in 2017 due to the war, now lives in the El Knetrat camp in the Kafar Lusin region.
Despite all the difficulties, Maya, the second oldest kid in the Elmeri family who lives in a boxy tent, takes care of her siblings, goes to her school, and helps her siblings to study.
