INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
After images of Maya Mehrin emerged on social media, she was brought to Turkey (Reuters)Istanbul: Eight-year-old Maya Merhi, who was born
with no legs, had to shuffle around a camp in northern Syria on makeshift limbs fashioned from old tubing and tin cans.Now she is taking her
first tentative steps in Istanbul on prosthetic legs, after images of her struggling in the tent encampment in Idlib appeared on social
media and she was brought to Turkey.Her father Mohammed Merhi, who suffers from the same congenital disorder as his daughter, had fled
fighting in the city of Aleppo with his wife and six children and took refuge in rebel-controlled Idlib."We faced many challenges,
especially moving from the place we lived in tents The situation in general was difficult," he said
"She was unable to walk so we had to create something for her to protect her from the ground," he said, referring to the improvised legs he
designed from tubes and old tins of tuna.Doctors hope Maya will be able to fully walk with her new prosthetic legs in three months, and they
say that her father's determination made their work easier."He did everything to make this child walk and God helped them," Turkish
prosthetic specialist Mehmet Zeki Culcu said
"Normally nobody would believe she could walk with these makeshift limbs."The Syrian conflict has displaced more than 11 million people,
around half within Syria and half as refugees abroad - including more than 3.5 million in neighbouring Turkey.© Thomson Reuters 2018(Except
for the headline, this story has not been edited by TheIndianSubcontinent staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
