In pictures: Syria's injured refugees
- Published
Among the tens of thousands of refugees fleeing into northern Jordan to escape the fighting in Syria are many people who have suffered life-changing injuries. Some of the injured are being treated by the charity Handicap International both in hospital and in towns and villages.
Esraa was shot by a sniper five months ago while sitting under a tree near her home in the Syrian city of Deraa. She was treated by doctors working in Syria's network of underground hospitals before being brought across the border into northern Jordan. Her physiotherapist is helping her back onto her feet, but Esraa is unlikely to walk again without crutches.
The bullet fractured her spinal cord and her spine is now held together with metal plates and screws. The physiotherapy and the trauma she has experienced leave Esraa physically and emotionally drained, and she often bursts into tears. "I want to play hide and seek and see my friends again," she says.
Those who have lost limbs will need a lifetime of care. This workshop in Amman makes the artificial legs which will be used by Syria’s casualties of war.
Asem is trying on his artificial limb for the first time. His left leg was ripped off above the knee by shrapnel in Syria in February.
When Asem walks with his prosthetic leg, the effect is instantaneous. "When I put the leg on, the phantom pains and the psychological pain disappeared," he says.
Dhia sustained massive chest and lung injuries when he was shot by a Syrian machine gunner. He is unable to move from a mattress on the floor of a house in the town of al-Ramtha. Dhia is 18 - but he does not know whether he will be able to work, find a wife and raise a family.
The Syrian border is just the other side of this olive grove. Many refugees live in the nearby villages. There are currently an estimated 375,000 Syrians in Jordan - but that number is expected to reach 1.2m by the end of the year.
Firaz Mahmood was shot in the leg on the outskirts of Damascus and he is now being treated at a hospital in northern Jordan where the patients are both soldiers and civilians.
Firaz is undergoing physiotherapy to help him recover his strength and will undergo more surgery in the coming weeks but wants to return to Syria as soon as he is fit enough.
Lubna was travelling in a minibus which was raked with gunfire in Deraa. Two people were killed while trying to rescue her. She was shot in the back, fracturing her spine, and as she lay bleeding for three hours texted her sister telling her she was dying.
Lubna's husband divorced her soon after she was injured. She now lives with her six sisters and two brothers - including five year old Ahmad - in a rented apartment near the Syrian border. She says her biggest hope is to be able to walk again and to return to her studies at Damascus University. Picture and text by Stuart Hughes.