Radwan Sahraoui was 9 years old when meningitis cost him his legs, his right hand, and three fingers on his left hand.
Doctors at the university hospital in Fez amputated his limbs because the blood vessels in them had died, his mother told Moroccan outlet Hespress. Since then, Rabiaa Roumaili has carried him on her back to school and back home again. She has done this for five years, and Radwan is now in sixth grade.
She says it is not just affection: it is a promise. She assured him that she would never abandon him and would stand by his side in everything, including his studies. Over time, she says, the boy began to overcome the trauma and made friends at school and in the neighborhood. One detail makes everything more difficult: Rabiaa says she suffers from a neurological illness that sometimes causes her to lose consciousness. And because she does not have a suitable wheelchair for Radwan, she continues to carry him herself. Her greatest fear is next year, when he moves on to secondary school and the school is farther from her home.
A photo of the scene, taken in Fez and shared in September 2018, moved many Moroccans, who praised her as an example for mothers and promised to donate a wheelchair to her.