Two Chicago Medical Professionals Return From Syrian Refugee Camp

(CBS) – Two Chicago area women -- Arshia Wajid and Tracy Ibgui -- have been back from their work in a Syrian refugee camp for less than a week.

It has changed them, CBS 2's Dana Kozlov reports.

The two medical professionals went to the Jordan camp for different reasons but with one goal: to help the tens of thousands of men, women and children living inside those barbed wires. The children, in particular, touched them.

"They wanted to be lifted up, they wanted to be hugged, then kissed, literally carried in your arms," said Wajid, a hospital administrator at Northwestern Medicine.

Both worked in the camp's medical clinic. Ibgui, a nurse at Loyola University Medical Center, recalls one woman:

"I'd asked her if she'd ever had a stroke. Her answer was, 'No, that was when my face was damaged in the bomb.'"

Both say the Zaatari camp is one of the better ones. It's a refuge from the crisis across the border, but not an escape.

"I'm glad they are away from the bombing but they also have to find hope in each day to keep moving on and right now there doesn't seem to be an end to this war," Ibgui says.

Both women are also members of the social media campaign #standwithaleppo. The group's message has already reached more than 40 million people around the world.

They hope the world starts paying more attention.