'Psychologically broken,' 8-year-old Sama loses her hair

Among the children in the Gaza Strip who have survived nearly 11 months of war is a new generation of orphans, amputees and those living with unbearable trauma.

JERUSALEM — Among the children in the Gaza Strip who have survived nearly 11 months of war is a new generation of orphans and amputees. And then, there’s 8-year-old Sama.

Though she still has both her parents and all her limbs, Sama Tabeel has lost almost all of her hair due to the unbearable stress of the war. “I am terrified of the shelling,” she tells NBC News from a camp in Khan Younis. She covers her bald head with a pink bandana she rarely takes off and passes time by playing with a doll whose hair she can braid, while longing for her own.

Sama’s mother watches with a heavy heart as her daughter sobs during much of the interview. “Sama was exposed to horror, fear and panic,” Olfat Tabeel, 33, said. 

Sama has lost almost all of her hair due to the unbearable stress of the war.NBC NewsOne night, they were woken up by the sound of shelling over their tent in Rafah, Tabeel said. They escaped, running to a hospital, where they were bombed again. Two or three days later, she said, “my daughter was combing her hair, and she told me, ‘Look, Mom.’” 

Some doctors thought Sama might have alopecia, but her hair had fallen out all at once, not slowly. Another doctor gave her medicine, but the side effects were too strong for an 8-year-old. Another suggested that Sama would need a scalp analysis, “but this kind of test doesn’t exist in Gaza,” Tabeel said.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/psychological-impact-gaza-war-8-year-old-loses-hair-rcna168939

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