Posted on 04/15/2003 10:14:01 PM PDT by yonif
KUWAIT (Reuters) - Doctors at a Kuwaiti hospital on Wednesday began treating an Iraqi child who touched hearts around the world after he lost his arms and most of his family during a bombing raid on Baghdad.
Ali Ismaeel Abbas was also badly burned when a missile hit his home during the U.S.-led war to topple Saddam Hussein, and doctors have warned he would die if he did not receive specialist treatment in the next few days.
A spokesman for Ibn Sina hospital in Kuwait said U.S. forces flew Ali from Baghdad to an airfield in Kuwait, where an ambulance picked him up and brought him to the hospital.
The boy, who arrived with his uncle, was in intensive care and he was expected to undergo surgery later this week.
Nine days ago, the child haltingly told Reuters correspondent Samia Nakhoul how war had shattered his life.
Little Ali has become a cause celebre after his plight was highlighted in newspapers and on television channels around the world, sparking a flood of fundraising appeals for war victims in Iraq.
The order to treat Ali came from high up in the ministry of health, hospital director Abdullatif al-Sahli said on Tuesday. Ibn Sina, which specializes in pediatric surgery, is already treating five children wounded in the Iraqi conflict.
The missile that obliterated Ali's home also killed his father, pregnant mother, brother, aunt, three cousins and three other relatives.
"Can you help me get my arms back? Do you think the doctors can get me another pair of hands. If I don't get a pair of hands I will commit suicide," he said with tears spilling down his cheeks and fear and pain in his eyes.
Catherine Mahoney from the British Red Cross said last week they had been inundated with calls from people wanting to donate money to Ali, adopt him, or help fly him out for treatment.
But she said the image had a much wider impact than simply showing the child's personal tragedy. It had brought home the whole human cost of the war unlike any other image so far.
On the other side of the world, Maharani Gayatri Devi, wife of the former ruler of the Indian princely state of Jaipur, has said she wanted to pay for his medical treatment in Iraq or anywhere else in the world.
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