Syria - As Syria marks the third anniversary of the start of armed conflict, IOM is helping a group of injured Syrian children to run, play and lead full lives.

Through a partnership with the Lugano-based social enterprise SwissLeg, which manufactures and fits low-cost artificial limbs, IOM is funding and overseeing the provision of prostheses for young Syrians who have lost one or both legs, in many cases as a result of the violence gripping their country.

SwissLeg’s chief technical officer, Mohammad Ismail, flew to Damascus last week to measure up 43 amputees, including 12 children. Production of the artificial legs – at the company’s manufacturing centre in Irbid, Jordan – will be completed this Sunday, and Mr. Ismail will return to Syria later this month to fit them.

The recipients are from eight different areas of Syria, with more than one-third of them living in the capital. Most of the children are aged between 10 and 17, although one is just four years old, and two others are six and seven. Thirty of those receiving new legs lost their limbs as a result of the armed conflict – from gunshots, mortars, explosions or mines.

Speaking by phone from Irbid today, Mr Ismail said he believes that about 60 per cent of Syrian amputees – whose numbers he estimates to be “in the thousands, not the hundreds” – are under 21.

“These are the people who are moving around most, whether they are children out playing or young men going to work or fighting,” he explained. “So they are the most subject to the shelling or land mines. Older people tend to stick to their homes.”

IOM has awarded a contract to SwissLeg – which is also working with IOM in Iraq – to fit and supply artificial limbs for 50 Syrians, at a total cost of USD 60,000. SwissLeg is also training an IOM staff member in Damascus and an NGO worker in Aleppo to adjust prostheses.

The fitting process will take four or five days, allowing for adjustments. With the new legs, which are lightweight and custom-fitted “children can run, they can play, they can do whatever they want,” Mr Ismail said. “They have exactly the same mobility as with their own legs.”

Maria Rumman, IOM’s Chief of Mission in Damascus, said: “What matters is that these innocent children get to walk and even run around again. This will give them hope.”

For more information, please contact

Maria Rumman
IOM Syria
Email: mrumman@iom.int
Tel: +963-11-6121370 Ext. 500