15/08/12

By Ian Garland

Waleed Qadora’s heart breaks as he watches his two young daughters playing.

Eight months ago he rescued them from the family’s burning home in the battle-scarred Syrian city of Homs after it was hit by shells fired between government forces and rebel fighters.

Terrified of further attack, the entire family then risked their lives fleeing to neighbouring Jordan.

The girls, aged four and three, survived the attack but were badly scarred and are now too embarrassed of their injuries to venture outside.

Scars: Waleed Qadora’s four-year-old daughter was badly scarred when the family’s home in the Syrian city of Homs was shelled

Recalling the night their neighborhood was targetted by warring regime forces and Syrian rebels, Mr Qudora tells CNN:’The children were on fire. I was running to get them and my arm caught fire.

I ran through the fire two or three times with out feeling a thing.

‘The only thing on my mind was that my children were inside. I could hear their voices. Hear them crying.’

His wife, who was pregnant at the time, escaped unharmed along well as the couple’s six year old son.

Trauma: She’s so self-conscious about her injuries, the girl is now too scared to venture outside

Escape: Waleed was burned rescuing his daughters, before fleeing with the entire family to Jordan

The girls were initially treated at a government hospital in Homs, but fearing a raid by Syrian regime forces, Mr Qadora took the family and fled for the border with Jordan.

After a perilous five day journey, they arrived in the capital Amman, where they have lived since - now a family of six - in a single high-rise hotel room.

Mr Qadora has been fortunate enough to enlist his daughters in a surgical programme run by the aid group Doctors Without Borders.

Psychological scars: His younger daughter is just three, but is still aware of scars on her face, telling her father: ‘I am not pretty, I am burned.’

Pain: The girls are being treated by Doctors Without Borders in Jordan, but will have to wait many years before they can have cosmetic surgery on their facial scars

They are among 200 Syrians who are being treated on the scheme, and have undergone multiple surgeries.

But because they will have to wait for several years before they are old enough to undergo cosmetic surgery to treat the scars on their faces.

And their father fears they psychological scars will be the hardest to heal.

He said: ‘(The three-year-old) used to always tell me, ‘I am cute, I am pretty. now she tells me, I am not pretty, I am burned.’”

Amman-based plastic surgeon, Dr Nasr Omar explained: ‘Whenever they have this ugly disfigured face i think they try to isolate themselves and try not to communicate with other in the normal way.

Ongoing: Syrians examine the damaged caused by an airstrike on the town of Azaaz, near the northern restive Syrian city of Aleppo, on August 15

Children: A Syrian man carries an injured child to a field hospital in Azaz as the Syrian Civil War rages on

Damage: A Syrian Air Force strike has left buildings in Azaz reduced to rubble