An Expectant Mother

Um Mohammed, a Syrian refugee living in Turkey, is seven months pregnant. Despite the uncertainty, she's glad her child will be born in peace.

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Um Mohammed is seven months pregnant. She has not seen a doctor in three months – the hospital is too far and she doesn’t have money for transportation.

“I will provide what I can for him, but he will be born here,” she said. “What more can I give him?”

She and her children fled their village in the outskirts of Hama 14 months ago after a barrel bomb struck her next door neighbor’s house and killed the entire family.

She lives with her brother and her two young children, Samira, 4 and Mohammed 2. Her husband is a rebel fighter with the Free Syrian Army.

Their home in Turkey – they live a few streets away from Najua and Fatima, her sister-in-law – is a single-room, former shop made of bare concrete and breeze blocks that costs $100 a month. “Life is very difficult here,” she said. “We even have mice running around between us.”

- Yuka Tachibana, Ammar Cheikomar and Aziz Akyavas