A 12-year-old girl with a broken arm has emerged as a symbol of resilience at Chios hospital, tending to other survivors following a deadly collision between a coast guard vessel and a migrant boat that claimed 15 lives.
Red Cross volunteers who arrived to assist dozens of injured survivors told philenews of the girl’s selflessness. Despite her own injury and lack of sleep, she moved between hospital wards to comfort other migrants and translate for medical staff.
«The little refugee girl doesn’t just look after her little brother. With a broken arm and no sleep, she goes from ward to ward to help her fellow countryfolk. She supports the boy who lost his father and is inconsolable,» volunteers reported.
Maria Serli, a volunteer, described the scene at the hospital’s paediatric department the day after the wreck. The ward was filled with injured children aged between 12 months and 13 years, many of whom were in shock and had not seen their parents since the disaster.
«Only one girl, a 12-year-old, spoke English,» Serli said. «That child, with a broken arm, looked after her brother—about 3 years old—and comforted him. The child went to other wards to help as an interpreter. She also comforted another child who was orphaned by his father. When rescuers went to the shipwreck, this girl told them “Leave me. See to my dad”.»
The tragedy extended across the hospital’s wings. Serli recalled a man asking desperately after his wife, unaware she had lost her unborn child in the accident. Another mother, a multiple-trauma patient, was so badly bruised and disfigured that her 12-month-old infant failed to recognise her, finding comfort only by clutching the hair of long-haired volunteers.
In the surgical ward, Serli assisted a two-year-old named Hansa who had refused to eat until reunited with his mother. Through gestures, the mother explained they had fled their country to give the child a better life.
