Sara

Sara Yusif is a Kurdish girl from Qamishli, in north-eastern Syria, now living with her family as refugees in Sulaymaniyah, Iraq. At the age of seven, she loses her right leg in a bombardment near her home during a Turkish attack on her city. When asked about that night, Sara always says she remembers nothing. The events of October 10, 2019 are therefore told through the voices of her parents, while Sara expresses her experience through her daily life, her words, and her paintings.
Born in 2012, Sara grows up amid continuous conflict. Her childhood unfolds alongside the violence that follows the Arab Spring, the rise of ISIL, and later the attacks on Kurdish cities in 2018 and 2019. On the day of the attack, Sara and her siblings run outside their home, believing their uncle has arrived to take them to safety. A rocket strikes the front of the house instead. Her brother Mohammad is killed instantly. Sara loses her right leg and fractures the other. Her brother Ahmad suffers severe damage to his right eye.
After emergency treatment in Syria, the family relocates to the Kurdistan Region of Iraq with the help of humanitarian organizations. Sara undergoes multiple surgeries, spends countless days in hospitals, and misses a year of school. As she slowly learns to live with one leg, the hospital becomes a constant presence in her childhood. In Sulaymaniyah, she returns to school, adapts to a new environment and language, and begins to paint as a way of expressing her story and the stories of other children affected by war.
In 2022, Sara returns to Qamishli to receive a prosthetic leg at the Kurdish Red Crescent Foundation. During her stay, she revisits her abandoned home and visits her brother’s grave. She learns that her amputated leg was buried alongside him—a discovery she absorbs with a dark, childlike humor. Back in Iraq, Sara continues to paint and, together with her friends, organizes an art exhibition for child victims of war, turning her personal trauma into a shared space of expression and solidarity.
As Sara learns to walk again and dreams of becoming a doctor one day, her family faces another struggle: seeking asylum in Europe so that she can receive advanced medical care and her brother can be treated properly. They attend interviews with the United Nations Refugee Agency, recounting their past once more. Their application is ultimately rejected. With no legal options left, Sara’s father leaves alone for Germany, hoping that one day he will be able to reunite his family in a place free from war.