YALA, 8 Jan 2015 – Children crippled from violence incidents in the deep South say they want new wheelchairs more than anything else as gifts on the Children’s Day.
One of those unfortunate children, an 11-year-old Imran Surapong, a local of Bannang Sata District in Yala, got caught up by one of the incidents that took away his father and left him paralyzed from waist down.
The boy underwent 3-year treatment and rehabilitation before returning to class. Fortunately their teachers and fellow students welcomed him back with open arms.
Fear however still planted deep in Imran, he developed distrust of strangers and is now less conversational than before. He has 2 wheelchairs; an old one for home use and a-year-old one for school use. He said it would be nice to replace his old wheelchair with a new one, as the aging chariot has weathered and is less functional.
Over the 11 years of southern violence, the three southern border provinces of Yala, Pattani, and Narathiwat, now have 5,448 orphans, out of that number 1,225 are in Yala, 2,130 are in Pattani, 1,918 are in Narathiwat, and 175 others are in 4 districts of Songkhla.
