Syrian woman in wheelchair tells UN disabled are invisible
Posted April 24, 2019 3:35 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
A 20-year-old Syrian woman with cerebral palsy says hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities already “were forgotten in times of peace” — and they “remain invisible” in her country’s long war, struggling to survive.
Nujeen Mustafa urged the U.N. Security Council at a meeting Wednesday on Syria to ensure that the urgent needs of people affected by the conflict, especially the disabled, are met. She said many struggle “to even get to sites where they can get aid.”
Sitting in a wheelchair, she described how her siblings carried her out of the city of Aleppo which was under attack after relatives were killed in the bombing of a funeral in June 2015. After a harrowing 16-month journey, she arrived in Germany where she is now a student.
The Associated Press
