A nine-year-old Syrian refugee had the chance to kick a soccer ball around the U.S. Congress' halls on Tuesday, as he visited the Capitol to watch President Obama's final State of the Union Address.
The echoing corridors were a long way from the camp in Syria where Ahmad Alkhalaf and his family were living two years ago, when a bomb blast took his arms and left him a double-amputee.
The bombing also killed three of Ahmad's siblings.
Two years after the attack, Ahmad and his father now live in Boston, where the boy is being treated at the Boston Children's Hospital.
His mother and four other siblings live in Turkey.
On Tuesday, Ahmad travelled to Washington, D.C., as a special guest for Obama's speech.
Massachusetts Congressman Seth Moulton hosted the boy and his father, and the executive director of NuDay Syria, a New England-based organization, came along to act as a translator.
"No one should experience in a lifetime what Ahmad has experienced at just nine years old," Moulton said in "His courage and commitment to creating a better world should be a lesson to us all."
While in Washington, D.C., Ahmad had the opportunity to see the National Air and Space Museum, meet politicians and test out his soccer skills in the U.S. Capitol Building.
Ahmad also took the chance to send a message to Obama and the rest of the country.
"There are many children like me," he wrote in a letter to the president. "Even if they did not lose their arms, then they lost everything else."
