Beritan Elyakut/JINHA

RIHA - Zahide Sağduni says she will continue her work as a volunteer healthcare worker until every one of her fellow Kobanê residents is safely back home in their city.

On September 15, 2014, Daesh forces launched a massive assault on the city of Kobanê, in the Rojava autonomous region in Syria. On that day, the residents of the city fled en masse to the town of Suruç, just across the border in Turkey.

Zahide Sağduni, like many refugees from Kobanê, took refuge in Suruç's Arin Mirkan Tent City. While thousands have returned to their homes in Kobanê since the city was liberated, the very young and very old have remained in the camp. They are awaiting the cleanup and reconstruction of the devastated city.

Now Zahide, who has become a fixture of the camp as a healthcare volunteer, says she won't return to her native city until all of the 88 remaining families are safely home.

Doctors come to the tent city once a week to do check-ups. In the meantime, they decided to train 14 tent city residents as healthcare volunteers. Zahide was one of them. That was ten months ago. Now, the rest of the team has left. But although she says that like everyone she wants to return home, Zahide has stayed on.

"I do everything except give shots," said Zahide. She noted that while during the winter she treated many patients with cold, now that the high summer temperatures have come she primarily treats small children made sick by the heat. Life is not easy in the tent city, she said.

"We're far from Kobanê. There's nothing to make us happy," said Zahide. "There was the [Eid al-Fitr] festival, but we didn't know it was the festival, we really didn't. There are clashes all over Kobanê and Rojava. As long as it goes on, these days have no meaning for us."

Zahide says she and the families remaining here long for the completion of the construction of Kobanê. When she returns, she plans to continue working in healthcare in her native city.

(sg/fk/cm)