DAMASCUS, Syria – With his shattered leg held together by metal plates, 75-year-old Ali Touma fled fighting in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta on crutches.
“Even with my broken leg, we made our way out,” he said describing the desperate trek to safety with his wife and grandchildren. “I used my crutches to walk out,” he adds.
Ali and his family are among more than 45,000 men, women and children driven from Eastern Ghouta by war, currently seeking safety at collective shelters in and around the Syrian capital Damascus.
Most of the residents have been trapped for five years by fighting, and many reaching shelter like Ali are broken physically or emotionally. Covered in dust from the destruction, he explains how his wife collapsed on arrival and was rushed to hospital, where doctors found she had suffered a stroke.
Read further: http://www.unhcr.org/news/latest/2018/3/5ab118f94/fighting-rages-eastern-ghouta-displacement-soars.html