Mehrnaz’s
favourite colours are yellow and red. Like any other six year-old,
she likes playing and drawing, but her life is not like that
of other children. For the last 12 days, she has been living
in a tent with her uncle.
Her mother, father and two older sisters died in the earthquake
that destroyed her house, along with most of the city of Bam
on 26 December.
Her family had invited two other families to a party at the
house. Only three of the 13 people staying there survived. All
three are children.
“The roof collapsed but created a hole through which the
three children could breath. They where trapped in a corner
of the room” says Qanbar Hosseini, the uncle who rescued
them. “I knew they were there, so I didn’t stop
until I found them.”
Mehrnaz was found one day after the earthquake struck, her face
injured, the dead bodies of her parents lying next to her. “I
kept shaking the bodies of my parents asking them to wake up
and take me out of there”, she says. “I cried and
shouted a lot.”
When she saw her uncle, she pointed at the rubble and told him,
“please save my father and mother. I need them”.
Mehrnaz is one of the 1,850 unaccompanied children in Bam. Fortunately
some of her family survived the earthquake and are now taking
care of her. They have lost their home too and are living in
two tents provided by the Iranian Red Crescent Society (IRCS).
“We try our best to provide everything for her. We feel
responsible since she’s alone and the only survivor in
her family” says her cousin, Abdulreza Hosseini.
She now spends lot of time playing with her four-year-old cousin,
Mahla. Smiling, she says, “next year, when I’m seven,
I’ll start school and make new friends.”
The other two boys found with her in the ruins of her house
are now staying with relatives in villages outside Bam. The
IRCS, together with the International Committee of the Red Cross,
is working to trace missing relatives and reuniting families.
For those children without an extended family, the IRCS, supported
by the International Federation, is trying to help them recover
from the trauma by providing them with accommodation, psychological
support, care and education.
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Mehrnaz
lost her parents and two older sisters in the Bam earthquake
(p11003)
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Mehrnaz
with her uncle, who rescued her from the rubble of her
house (p11002)
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The
Iranian Red Crescent is providing support to children
affected by the disaster, especially the 1,850 unaccompanied
ones in Bam (p11005)
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News
