Entertainment
‘I never thought I would make it to this stage’
Just six months after she was born Shamiam Arif suffered 70% burns to her face, hands and body when a candle fell into her cot at her family’s home in Kashmir.
The now 22-year-old, who lives in Luton, has just graduated with a degree in film production and is aiming for a career “doing what I love the most”.
“My mum screamed but the room was already in flames.”
Shamiam recalls of the night that changed the course of her life, shortly after she was born in Kotli in Pakistan-administered Kashmir.
“My dad grabbed me and ran out of the house while everyone else was putting buckets of water on the fire.”
She was not expected to survive.
Her parents took her to the local hospital, but it did not have the ability to deal with severe burns.
“They said I was untreatable. They kept bandaging me up and then unbandaging it,” Shamiam says.
“We were sent five hours away to another hospital, but the damage was already done.”