Sara was born in 2016, a beautiful and healthy baby girl in a small village outside Deir ez-Zor, Syria. Just four months later, tragedy struck. A rat bit her tiny toes — a danger that has become all too common in Syria, where years of conflict have left towns littered with waste and decaying infrastructure. The collapse of sanitation systems has allowed rats and other rodents to multiply, posing serious health risks to children like Sara.

Sara’s condition worsened rapidly. Shortly after the bite, she became partially paralysed and developed a dangerously high fever. Her worried parents rushed her to a nearby hospital, where a nurse told them she was dehydrated and gave her medication. But her condition showed no improvement.

“Doctors didn’t know what was wrong,” recalls her mother. “I was terrified. When Sara cried out, she couldn’t move — she couldn’t even blink. Her eyes were open, but there was no response from her at all.”

Growing increasingly desperate, they took her to another hospital in Al-Hasakah. There, Sara suffered a seizure and slipped into a coma that lasted four long days. After multiple tests, doctors discovered traces of toxins in her body, believed to have entered through the rat bite.

Although Sara was given medicine, the damage had already been done. The bite had left her with hemiplegia — paralysis affecting one side of her body.

A Journey in Search of Hope

“We had lost everything because of the war,” her mother explains. “We couldn’t find work in Syria to pay for our home or for Sara’s treatment.”

Through friends, they heard there might be hope across the border. In 2021, like hundreds of thousands of other Syrian families, they left everything behind and travelled to Türkiye in search of medical help.

In Şanlıurfa, they found Ummah Care Foundation. Sara has been attending UCF’s physiotherapy sessions for the past nine months. When she first arrived, she was unable to walk at all.

“I went to many specialist centres before bringing Sara here,” her mother says. “It was very difficult — no one really understood Sara or how to deal with her condition.”

Small Steps, Big Victories

With her mother’s unwavering dedication and the expertise of UCF’s rehabilitation team, Sara began to show remarkable progress. After just five months of therapy, she took her first unaided steps.

“The care and support that UCF has given us is amazing,” says her mother. “I have found a family here — the team are like my sisters. They have given Sara and me such hope. Sara doesn’t fully understand the changes, but we can see her incredible improvements every single day.”

Today, Sara continues to attend regular sessions at UCF. Her mother dreams of one day returning to Syria — and believes that with the continued help of UCF’s team, that dream will become reality.

“I achieved my goal of coming to Türkiye to help my daughter,” she says proudly. “I will not return disappointed.”