Care for Marginalized
Health on Wheels A mobile clinic delivers hope in Kurdistan text and photographs by Raed Rafei
E
vene George considers her toddler a living miracle. During the fifth month of her pregnancy, Islamic State warriors stormed her hometown of Mosul. After a brief moment of confusion that hot June night in 2014, she managed to escape with her family. For six hours she walked, sensing an intensifying pain in her swollen feet. Then her neighbors pushed her in a cart. Gradually overcome by exhaustion, she felt certain she would miscarry. Finally, after settling down among tens of thousands of other similarly displaced Iraqi Christians, Yazidis and
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Muslims in nearby Kurdistan, Mrs. George gave birth to a healthy boy. The 27-year-old now resides with her husband, three sons and two teenage sisters in Nafkandala, a small, desolate Assyro-Chaldean village in northern Kurdistan, a semiautonomous region of Iraq protected against Islamist militants by Kurdish Peshmerga forces. While they survive with support from charities and aid groups, the full extent of their needs remains great. For days now, her son, Massis — now 13 months old — has been suffering from a persistent cough and a sore throat.