STATEN ISLAND, N.Y. — Marzia was just 6 years old and hiding with her family from the Taliban in Afghanistan when a targeted, violent Talibani ambush took the life of her father and brother.
Though she survived the firearms assault, bullets shattered her upper jaw, destroyed her right eye and left her with few remaining teeth. Years of pain, bullying and seclusion followed as she hid with her family in her impoverished village while the war in Afghanistan raged on.
But inside the cheerful offices of Staten Island Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in Bloomfield, the beautiful 19-year-old girl received the life-changing surgery that gave her back her smile — just in time for Christmas…