Sewar Assyria was born in war and hunger and did not know anything else. It is now in a real danger of death without knowing a moment of peace or contentment.
The six -month -old Palestinian girl, whose lively body symbolizes deliberate hunger in Gaza when she is It appeared on the BBC This week was only 2.5 kg when she was born on November 20 last year.
From birth, Siwar has faced a problem with the esophagus that made it difficult for her to drink mother’s milk and let her depend on a specialized formula, which is linked to the lack of offer.
Her parents’ house was bombed in Al -Nuwairat, in the middle of the road on the coast on the Gaza Strip, earlier in the war, which started in October 2023 when Hamas killed 1,200 people IsraelThis has led to an Israeli attack so far more than 52,000 people in Gaza. They lived in the tents for a while, but it was almost impossible to get food or water in the camp, as it was exposed to Israeli fire.
They tried to return to the Nuwairat to stay at the home of the ancestors of Siwar, but this was also bombed. All the remainder of the building was one room, which they shared with 11 other people. This was where Siwar was born.
“I have exhausted all the time. There was no privacy, and I couldn’t get any rest,” said Najwa Aram, the 23 -year -old Siwar’s mother. “There was no appropriate food or nutrition, and when she gave birth to her, she was not like other children.”
“When she was born, she was beautiful despite the visible weakness on her features,” she said. “But she is now abnormally thin. Her children are supposed to weigh 6 kg or more-not only 2-4 kg.”
Najwa discovered last month that she was pregnant with her second child, but she lives in terror from losing Siwar before the birth of her brother or sister. She moved to Khan Yunis to stay with her mother, but she spent most of the past few months in the hospital with her weak daughter.
Her husband, Saleh, blind, and had to stay in the mourners. The uncompromising shelling has been forced to move several times, like almost all families in GazaAnd I tore them.
“Although Siwar’s father was blind, he was playing with her a lot. We visited us in the hospital only once, because he could not move without being accompanied by a person,” Najwa said. “He fears it more than I do – it is deeply linked to it.”
The family does not depend on any source of income on the charitable kitchens of food and some humanitarian aid, but that is also in a desperate shortage as the total Israeli siege in Gaza is approaching the mark of 70 days. Philip Lazarini, President of the United Nations Nutrition Agency, UNRWA, He said this week: “Hunger is man -made and political motives in Gaza is an expression of absolute cruelty.”
Najwa and her mother have one bag of left flour, as well as some cans.
“Once this is run out, we will not be able to buy anything because of the high prices,” Najwa said. More importantly, the special milk formula supplies that Siwar needs is more difficult and difficult to find.
“I also have malnutrition. However, I am trying to breastfeed Siwar, but she refuses and continues to cry, she rejects me completely,” said Najwa. “That’s why I had to rely more on the formula of formula. When I used to breastfeed it, one of the formula will continue a month. Now it runs out in less than a week.”
Najwa and her daughter spent most of March in the hospital in Deir Al -Bala, where there was a milk formula that appeared working, which reaches the weight of up to 4 kg.
“I noticed that Siwar started to smile and play, which made me happy and gave me hope that her health would improve.”
But the fragile moment of hope that collapsed when it was emptied, and Siwar began to lose weight again. She was referred to Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, where the mother and her daughter remain at the present time.
Najwa said: “Doctors do everything they can to care, but it also does not tolerate the formula they prepare for,” said Najwa. “The hospital situation is bad. There are six patients in every room. Everywhere you look at it, there is suffering. There is a child in a worse condition than Siwar.”
She said: “Seeing my daughter in this case every day gives me insomnia.” “I am very worried and excessive. Sometimes I cannot bear her vision like this, and I start crying. I am very afraid of losing it. The world cannot open the crossings to allow milk, food and medicine. All I want is that my daughter will live like the rest of the children in the world.”
Dr. Ahmed Al -Farah, Director of Children’s Building and Motherhood at Nasser Medical Complex, said that between five and 10 cases of new malnutrition are recorded every day.
“We see severe cases. malnutrition Farah said: “It appears in the children in a very terrifying and visual way. We have nothing to offer them. They need proteins, but there is nothing.
“Moreover, severe overcrowding in hospitals increases the transmission of the disease among children,” he added.
There are only enough fuel in the Nasser complex to keep generators for another 48 hours. They have already been forced to stop electricity on the administrative floors to make it last a little longer, but the power supply will soon be cut into the wings of the crowded patients.
The doctor said: “We are unable to face their needs – we cannot provide food, nutritional supplements, medications, or vitamins suitable for their circumstances,” the doctor said. Farah said: “I studied malnutrition in the books of the Faculty of Medicine. I used to think that the study will remain a theory, which is something that we have never seen in real life. But now, the descriptions of textbooks have emerged in front of our eyes in Gaza.”
“I invite the world to see us as human beings – we have been created like anyone else.”
