Despite having lost both her legs in a road accident when she was four, a 39-year-old Moroccan woman in a wheelchair arrived in a boat along with 39 other migrants rescued off the Canary Islands on July 30.
An image of hope and a smile that lights up the room in defiance of all the challenges she faces: 39-year-old Gilzan, says she never stopped dreaming of a better future for herself and her mother despite having been a double-amputee since childhood.
Onboard the small dinghy that departed on July 27 from Agadir, Morocco, alongside 39 of her fellow migrants of African origins, Gilzan faced a three-day crossing, leaving the wheelchair she had been using since she was a child behind her.
When she was four years old, she lost both legs as a result of a road accident. Towards the end of the crossing, the dinghy on which Gilzan was traveling was rescued off the island of Lanzarote, in the Canaries, by a Spanish sea patrol vessel, which took the migrants to the port.
Once disembarked in Arrecife, Gilzan's excitement was irrepressible. The woman was assisted by Red Cross volunteers that helped her to get a new wheelchair. Her presence and wide smile did not go unobserved.
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Solidarity at sea
"She was crazy happy. She had done it," one of the volunteers that assisted her told local media.
The volunteers said they had listened to her story of resilience, courage, and hope of a better life that she said had pushed her to undertake the long and dangerous journey by sea to reach the Canary Islands.
Gilzan did not go into how she traveled the 460 kilometers from Casablanca, where her mother is, to Agadir. Nor where she left her wheelchair. However, she did say that she had managed to survive the three-day journey thanks to the help and solidarity of her travel companions, including nine North African women.
She added that her sole motivation, the only thought that gave her strength in every moment was the desire to help her mother once she arrived in Spanish territory. Gilzan was initially hosted in a center on Lanzarote, managed by the ACCEM NGO, which expects to transfer her soon to the Iberian peninsula, where the woman then hopes to find work.
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