Samia al-Atrash: ‘We are prisoners here, we can't work, we can’t travel’

Having reported on Sami al-Atrash’s tragic story of loss last month, Colin Sheridan travelled to Cairo to meet her and find out about her life since fleeing the Gaza Strip

Samia al-Atrash holds the body of her two-year-old niece Massah in Rafah last October. File picture: Said Khatib/AFP via Getty Images

What do you say to somebody the first time you meet them, and the reason for that meeting is because their sister is dead. Killed. Blown to pieces by an Israeli airstrike eight months ago?

Do you begin by acknowledging that loss, and the loss of her sister’s infant children? Or her sister’s husband, all killed in the same airstrike?