Sahla

In the summer of 2006 Sahla was in her garage baking bread while her husband and children were out when a car bomb went off outside her home, causing the oven she was using to explode. Sahla’s neighbors heard her screaming and came to her aid, putting out the fire with blankets and calling her husband, who came home and took her to the nearest hospital.

There she was diagnosed with third-degree burns over 30% of her body and remained in the hospital for three months, followed by six months of treatment at home and two surgeries on her left eye, both of which were unsuccessful.

In December 2007, Sahla went to Amman, Jordan in hopes of receiving care unavailable to her in Iraq. It was there that DAI team members were put in contact with her.

While dealing with the physical and emotional pain of a severe burn injury, Sahla says the most painful part of her experience has been what it has done to her family. Her children, three of whom came with her in Jordan, will no longer eat at the same table with her or allow her to make their beds, and her husband married a second wife just a year after the attack. Sahla is now concerned that her husband will not stay with her, and when a DAI representative talked to Sahla’s husband about his and his children’s behavior toward his wife he stated, in front of Sahla, that she was “very ugly and they were afraid to look at her”. She feels as if she has lost her children, who have cut themselves off from her because of how her severe burns have changed her appearance.

Sahla believes that her only hope of regaining her family life lies in receiving the reconstructive and plastic surgeries she so needs. This involves reconstruction of her lips, breast and left eye, and cosmetic surgery to remove scar tissue on her face and limbs.

DAI is trying to provide funding and arrange medical care so that Sahla can begin the process of healing and start to live her life again.

Please click here to support DAI’s efforts to provide Sahla and other Iraqis with the help they deserve.