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ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – A young refugee from Syria is hoping treatment abroad will ease his pain after struggling with multiple birth defects.
Sixteen-year-old Rami Khalid, currently living in Erbil’s Darashakran camp, lost his mother when he was three weeks old, before being abandoned by his father.
“His mom came to me in my dreams and asked me to adopt Rami and that is what I did,” Samira Otaibi, a relative of the family, told Rudaw’s Hadi Salimi. “It has been 16 years and he has had more than 20 surgeries. The doctors are very hopeless that he can get treated here and say we should take him abroad, which we really cannot afford.”
Rami was born without male genitalia, an anomaly that happens to about one in every 30 million births.
He also has four crooked vertebrae and broken hips, meaning he cannot stand or walk for long periods of time.
“My whole life has become pain,” Rami said in tears. “I do not want anything other than for people to help us go abroad and get me treated.”
The teenager is known for his musical talents, the only thing that has provided him solace from the pain.
Rami “needs to be sent abroad to Europe and kept there a few months to get professional treatment,” added general surgeon Mohammed Salim.
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