A viral picture helps deliver Syrian refugee household to Italy

The award-winning {photograph} — of a person who had misplaced a leg in a bomb assault in Syria, hoisting into the air his son, born with out limbs, one other casualty of the nation’s civil struggle — went viral final yr in Italy.
On Friday, Munzir El Nezzel, the person within the image, and his son Mustafa arrived in Italy after a exceptional effort by the organizers of the Siena International Photo Awards, to deliver them and their household from Turkey, the place they’d fled after Syria.
“We are coming, thank you,” 6-year-old Mustafa, smiling broadly, stated in a video message recorded earlier than he and his household — El Nezzel, the boy’s mom and two sisters ages 1 and 4 — boarded a aircraft in Ankara, Turkey, on Thursday to fly to Italy. “We love Italia,” he added.
The image of Mustafa and his father, each with loving smiles, which was taken in January 2021 by Turkish photographer Mehmet Aslan and referred to as “Hardship of Life,” was declared picture of the yr on the Siena awards final yr.
The emotional and surprising image made headlines in Italy and unfold internationally on social media, spurring the competition’s organizers to take motion and begin a fundraising drive to get remedy for father and son.

Munzir El Nezzel, little Mustafa, his mom Zeynep and two daughters Nur and Sacide are flying to Rome right this moment. They can be welcomed by the administrators of the Siena International Photo Award, volunteers of the Misericordia and a cultural mediator. In Siena, a brand new life will start. pic.twitter.com/7oHEkJBnDe
— Ines San Martin (@inesanma) January 21, 2022
The competition’s organizers contacted diplomats, hospitals, rehabilitation facilities and the Catholic diocese in Siena to host the Syrian household, in order that Mustafa and his father may get remedy and prosthetics.
“The picture was beyond all imagination,” stated Luca Venturi, an engineer who based the Siena images competition, which bestowed the award, about six years in the past. “We thought we could also go beyond our fear of not being able to do anything for this family.”
Like all nations, Italy can difficulty visas for humanitarian causes, however refugees have to be sponsored by an area group that handles paperwork and offers monetary assist.
Motivated by the success of the crowdfunding effort, the nonprofit that organizes the images competition determined to sponsor the Syrian household.
“It was a big dream for everybody,” Venturi stated.
As Venturi labored his connections in Italy, attempting to get permission to deliver the household from Turkey, he saved common contact with El Nezzel through WhatsApp, utilizing Google Translate to speak in Arabic with the 33-year-old father of three.
Venturi additionally despatched aerial pictures of Siena’s walled medieval metropolis middle to clarify to the household, who had lived with no tv for a decade, the place they have been going to maneuver.
El Nezzel responded with exclamation factors.
When the household was instructed this month that their visas had come by way of, “they were in disbelief,” Venturi stated, including that in a video, Mustafa did somersaults and laughed, shouting “I love you” to him.
Mustafa was born with a congenital dysfunction that resulted from drugs that his mom needed to take whereas pregnant with him, after she was sickened by nerve fuel launched in the course of the struggle in Syria. He will want long-term remedy to have the ability to stroll or dwell extra independently. His mother and father presently carry him round, and one among his two sisters additionally helps him round the home.
Prosthetics consultants in Italy will meet with Mustafa and his father in coming weeks to design new synthetic limbs. El Nezzel’s remedy is prone to be simpler as a result of he’s an grownup. Working with a 6-year-old can be tougher, in line with the docs and engineers of Italy’s main rehabilitation and prosthetics middle.
Gregorio Teti, director of the power, the Centro Protesi Inail, in Vigorso di Budrio in northern Italy, stated that the daddy may get well most of his mobility in just a few weeks.
For Mustafa, the method could possibly be longer, beginning with easy prosthetics on his higher limbs which can be normally simpler to simply accept and get accustomed to. Later, engineers will design synthetic limbs round Mustafa’s hips.
“It’s a technical but also a psychological learning curve,” Teti stated. “His world will change, and even accepting that takes time.”
As Mustafa grows, his prosthetics should be adjusted to his altering physique.

“As a child, he has time on his side,” Teti stated. “Research will probably allow him to drive a car and get to work autonomously when he is older.”
But he may even be dealing with the challenges of migrating to a overseas nation, studying a special language and creating a brand new life.
“Leaving your home country is always an enormous jump, but we hope to help them find a new home here,” stated Anna Ferretti, who’s in command of town’s department of Caritas, a Catholic support affiliation that’s providing the El Nezzels an residence on the outskirts of Siena and can cowl their every day monetary wants for a yr.