World-class care offers hope for innocent victims of terror
AN Iraqi boy’s life changed forever one day as he was selling cans of soft drinks at his wooden stall on the streets of Baghdad.
Muslim Jaburi, 16, remembers nothing about the car bomb which exploded just metres away from him. The blast ripped open his torso, flames ate up the skin on his legs while his bones were shattered in several places and shrapnel pierced his head.
That was in July.
Tragic tales like that of Muslim’s involving terrorist attacks are not uncommon in Iraq today.
Lying in his wheelchair in the Jordan Red Crescent Hospital in Amman, the thin boy’s sad brown eyes look inquiringly up at staff.
His father, Ali, keeps a hand on his son’s shoulder while explaining how the pair ended up in Jordan.
“He would come every morning to see me after selling drinks but that morning he didn’t arrive. Then a policeman who knew my son came and told me that he had been injured in the bombing.”
On the day of the explosion, four bombs exploded in and around Baghdad killing scores of Iraqis.
Both Muslim’s legs were broken and serious infections developed on his skinless limbs. His liver and stomach were badly injured and a long scar from surgical stitches to his torso travels up his chest.
The hospital in the Jordanian capital has become their home in recent months under the care of a specialist surgical team led by the international charity Médecins Sans Frontières.
Ali continues: “When Muslim was injured, he was taken to hospital in Baghdad and seen by doctors who said they couldn’t do anything. I was told they would have to saw them [his legs] off. They proposed amputation.
“I argued with them and was not happy. They asked me to sign the forms but I refused.”
It was there that MSF staff heard of Muslim’s case and arranged for his transfer to a specialist treatment unit in Amman, Jordan.
MSF doctors were hopeful that they could save his legs with reconstructive surgery and skin grafts. But it would take time.
Rain pours down outside as the sound of evening prayers begins at the nearby mosques. Muslim silently cries. “All I want to do is walk again,” he says.
[Since this interview, Muslim and his father have returned to Iraq.]
With the help of private Irish funds, MSF teams in the hospital are treating some of the most injured Iraqi civilians.
Networks of doctors in Iraq identify worst cases or patients suffering from problems with their original surgery there. The injured civilians are then transferred across the border to Jordan by road or air and receive top of the range care, where medical staff can offer specialist treatment including general reconstructive, bone-related, plastic and facial reconstructive surgery.
The 55 medical staff include surgeons, doctors, anaesthetists, nurses and counsellors. While the majority of patients are from Iraq, the unit has also begun treating injured civilians from Gaza, Libya and even Syria in recent times.
Patients mainly have amputations or burns and/or deformations on their faces.
The MSF project originally pulled out of Iraq in 2003 because of security concerns. Stationed in Jordan since 2006, staff have treated some 1,150 patients.
Hospital medical director Nancy Foote explains: “The majority of our patients have been injured in bomb blasts. The story is that they are usually walking down the street or on their way to the market and a bomb has gone off and they’ve been injured. There are horrific stories that have happened to people.
“The problem with IEDs [improvised explosive devices] is they’re constructed with lots of shrapnel in them. They put nails and all sorts of things. We took a chunk of metal out of a guy’s buttocks the size of a golf ball. They get blast trauma which crushes the tissue, they get shrapnel and they get burns. So it’s really a three-pronged attack.”
In one bed lies Khanda Farag, who smiles, betraying the painful skin burns covering her chest, neck and arms beneath her clothing. Her son Jear, 6, plays as her husband, Brahim, explains how the northern Iraqi family came to be in hospital.
“The explosion happened a year and three months ago. Originally she had eight operations in east Iraq but it was no good.”
Khanda starts to bite her lip as her husband describes the day of the terrorist bomb in Kirkuk.
“I was at work and she went to the market to buy vegetables for lunch and that’s when it happened.”
Khanda, with bandages reaching up and around her neck, strains to turn her head but she still manages to smile a little as she moves to talk: “I’ve no idea what happened. I only remember a huge noise, an explosion and I lost consciousness. After four days I woke up and there were the injuries and burns on my front, my back, my arms, neck and chest.”
MSF surgeons are expanding the surviving tissue on her neck, chest and other areas and have already carried out eight skin procedures.
However, the family blame their woes and those of others on the scramble for wealth in oil-rich Kirkuk, which has led to wanton violence carried out by terrorists.
“Everybody wants the oil. But the problems are the people from outside [from other countries],” says husband Brahim. His wife agrees and adds: “There’s oil and nothing for the population. Everything is expensive and we are poor.”
[Khanda and her family, after 16 months of treatment, have since returned to Iraq. Her condition has improved.]
* This series was carried out with the help of the Simon Cumbers Media Fund, supported by Irish Aid
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