Heartbreaking plight of a Syrian girl using sardine tin can legs

Heartbreaking footage shows a little girl using makeshift prosthetic legs made from tin cans at a displacement camp in Syria. Eight-year-old Maya Ali Merhi and her father were both born without lower limbs, a condition called congenital amputation, the cause of which is unknown. Unable to afford real prosthetics, Maya’s father was able to make a pair out of tin cans filled with cotton and pieces of cloth for his daughter at the camp for displaced refugees in the Syrian province of Idlib. In the footage, forelorn Maya can be seen by her father’s side as he explains how he made the pair of tin legs for his daughter. ‘I mounted some plastic on two tins of sardines with which she can go to school with. ‘My heart suffers when I see her crawling in front of friends, while they play and run.’ Mohammed, who also needs prosthetics said: ‘It’s hard but those are better than nothing.’ The family fled Aleppo because of the fighting and to ‘flee bombings’ and were placed at the camp in Idlib, the last major territory in rebel hands.