Khuram Shaikh: His Memory Walks On

In Gaza City today a new rehabilitation room at the Artificial Limb and Polio Centre was named in honour of Khuram Shaikh, a Physical Rehabilitation Project Manager for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) who died on 25 December 2011.

The Centre cares mostly for people who have had amputations, but also for those living with the mobility effects of polio and other complaints such as rickets and cerebral palsy.

The head of the Centre told me that when the ICRC came in 2008 they found a very bad situation, and decided to launch a five-year programme of co-operation. Khuram was the third project manager to work on the programme, and he did something very different from what had been done before his arrival.

Khuram developed the service and planned its technical aspects. Staff have trained internationally in prosthetics and orthotics, and the centre is able to produce their own prosthetic limbs in Gaza, hoping to soon extend to the establishment of a technical bench, as well as to provide transport so needy children from Rafah and Middle Gaza can also benefit from the service.

“Khuram was very popular with everyone here,” his colleagues told me. “We were all devastated when he was murdered [in a street crime while on vacation in Sri Lanka]. But we will never forget him, because what he has left behind will carry on benefiting so many people.”

Khuram Shaik’s brother Nasser Shaikh spoke to the event by video-conference from England, saying despite the tragic circumstances, his family would never forget the wonderful things he told them the last time he was home about the Gazan people and his colleagues there, and how much pleasure he got from working and living with them. He said the family drew a lot of strength from seeing and hearing how much he was loved and appreciated by the Gazan people in return, and asked that despite the early end to his life, they remember Khuram as the giving person he was, still smiling down on them.

The Mayor of Gaza, Rafiq Mekki, recalled that he met Khuram when he first arrived in Gaza and knew well his love and loyalty to the Gazan people, and his concern for all humanity everywhere. He was glad to pay tribute to him by approving the naming of the room in Khuram’s honour, and extended his condolences to his family and his colleagues, saying he hopes Khuram is now in paradise.

The Head of the Gaza Sub-Delegation of the ICRC Arfaan Suliman said how difficult it was to describe all that Khuram had done, as he had done so much. He thanked the ICRC for hosting the inauguration, noting that although Khuram’s death was a great loss for his family, the people of the Gaza Strip, and for the ICRC, he will not be forgotten.

By the time the ribbon was cut, several people were in tears, indicating the high esteem in which he was clearly held by his friends and colleagues.

But the greatest testament to his legacy was cancer survivor Wala’a Anahal, an eight year old girl who has just completed her three months pre-prosthetic training and was having a follow-up appointment after receiving her ‘new’ leg.

How does it feel, I asked her?

“It hurts a bit at the top, but it’s great!” she replied, walking off across the room to prove it.

Mayor Mekki dedicates the room

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the dignitaries cut the ribbon

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and tearful colleagues pay tribute

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Wala'a waits for her new leg

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physio Amani Al-Haddad makes an adjustment

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and she's off!

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ENDS

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