Abdullah Abu Zerka, 4, died of starvation despite evacuation to Turkey

Abdullah Abu Zerka died in the Adana City Training and Research Hospital in Turkey despite 10 days of relentless effort by doctors to help him recover from severe malnutrition.

The staff are still working to save his six-month-old sister, Habiba, and they are cautiously optimistic that she will make it.

The evacuation to Turkiye came through a Turkish Foreign Ministry humanitarian programme, with Turkish officials working diplomatic channels to secure the family’s passage. But the process took weeks – time that Abdullah’s failing body couldn’t afford. “We arrived carrying children who were already ghosts of themselves,” said Hamed Abu Zerka, the children’s father.

Abdullah’s body was cremated in the Gulbahcesi neighbourhood cemetery in Adana

More at Al Jazeera