Posted on 04/15/2003 3:27:46 PM PDT by knighthawk
ALI Ismail Abbas, the Iraqi boy who lost his arms and both his parents to a US rocket, was being evacuated last night from the Baghdad hospital where he faced certain death.
Doctors feared the 12-year-old would die from his injuries.
But The Daily Telegraph stepped in to arrange his rescue – an airlift to Kuwait City, where there are better medical facilities.
The Kuwaiti Government has agreed to organise treatment for the burns that cover more than a third of his body.
Last-minute preparations for the mercy flight were being made early today.
The mission was organised by The Daily Telegraph's team in Baghdad after a reader who had heard of Ali's plight asked if he could help.
The Telegraph returned to Saddam City Hospital, which had been caring for Ali, to discover that previous offers of assistance and attempts by foreign aid and media groups to get him to a safer environment had come to nothing.
The US military had offered to take Ali to a hospital ship to stabilise his condition but was reluctant to take on responsibility for the child because his longer-term care needs include plastic surgery and prosthetics.
US officers felt a distant US military hospital was not the best place for him.
Saddam Hospital director Dr Mowafak Gorea had been rejecting some offers of assistance, saying he had heard plenty of promises but seen no action. Dr Gorea also said he did not want Ali taken far from the uncle and aunt who are now his guardians.
That left Ali in an unsterile ward of a hospital that is struggling to cope with scores of war-related casualties and attacks by armed looters.
With no telephone lines working in Baghdad, The Daily Telegraph shuttled between a US Navy medical officer – Petty Officer Ed Martin – and the hospital administrator before proposing neighbouring Kuwait as a solution.
Stewart Innes, a Kuwaiti-based Briton who had been working as The Daily Telegraph's Arabic translator during the war on Iraq, then used his contacts in Kuwait City to approach health and charity officials there.
Within hours, an assistant director of the Kuwaiti Health Ministry, Dr Abdul Rida Abbas, had agreed to provide help to save Ali's life and the longer-term care he needs.
After the hospital and Ali's family had agreed he could be transferred, the US military offered to provide a helicopter flight to Kuwait.
US medical officers used The Daily Telegraph's satellite phone and hotel room yesterday to speak to Kuwaiti officials to organise Ali's transfer.
A US military spokesman said air was the "safest" way to get Ali to the help he so urgently needs.
"We've been working with the Iraqi hospital officials as well as the doctors that have been taking care of him to get him moved out to make sure that he gets the proper care," the spokesman said.
"It looks like we may have worked something out with the Kuwaiti Ministry of Health."
The reader who inspired the mercy dash was Perth man Tony Trevisan, who telephoned The Daily Telegraph's sister paper The Australian to ask if he could help after reading in Monday's paper that Ali's nurse and doctors believed he could die from blood infections any day.
Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Tony Blair responded to wide coverage of Ali's plight in the British media by telling the House of Commons that every effort should be made to save Ali. Mr Blair did not know a haven in Kuwait and an evacuation flight for Ali had been organised.
Mr Blair's minders in London apparently later suggested to reporters that Mr Blair had been involved, although US military doctors insisted there had been no such role.
British television networks rushed to the hospital after Mr Blair's comments, creating a crush as the medical staff awaited the US ambulance.
Ali's parents and brother were killed in a rocket attack which destroyed their home two weeks ago. Most of his six sisters were injured in the blast as the coalition of Australian, British and US forces were pounding Baghdad before overthrowing Saddam Hussein's regime.
Ali's uncle was travelling to Kuwait City with him to.
The Daily Telegraph will assist him in Kuwait and Mr Trevisan yesterday offered money to help the uncle stay in Kuwait City for some time so Ali does not feel alone.
"I wanted to do anything I could after reading that story and seeing your [John Feder's] photograph," he said.
"It was a cruel photo to see, with those injuries and his beautiful brown eyes but it was one of the most compelling photos I have ever seen."
Peter Wilson is The Australian's European correspondent. During the war in Iraq he is on assignment for The Daily Telegraph and its fellow News Limited newspapers.
The Telegraph returned to Saddam City Hospital, ... The Daily Telegraph shuttled between a US Navy medical officer ...
Stewart Innes, who had been working as The Daily Telegraph's Arabic translator ...US medical officers used The Daily Telegraph's satellite phone...
The reader who inspired the mercy dash was Perth man Tony Trevisan, who telephoned The Daily Telegraph's sister paper...The Daily Telegraph will assist him in Kuwait
Touching story. And I would have enjoyed it more had not the Daily Telegraph written it in such a self-serving manner.
To convince hospitals to do this, America would need to guarantee these bills- but it seems to me that the State Department could work something out with Congress in a very short time.
I know the details need work, but these kids need help NOW, not six months from now when the new Iraqi Parliament or whatever gets going.
"Can you help get my arms back? Do you think the doctors can get me another pair of hands?" he asked from his hospital bed.
"If I don't get a pair of hands, I will commit suicide."
The 12-year-old was asleep at the time of the attack in Diala Bridge district east of Baghdad. His mother, five months pregnant, died, as did his father, brother and seven other members of his family.
"Our neighbors pulled me out and brought me here. I was unconscious," Ali was quoted by Reuters as saying from his bed in Kindi Hospital in Baghdad.
"I wanted to become an army officer when I grow up, but not anymore. Now I want to become a doctor, but how can I? I don't have hands."
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