Afghan infant dies after US heart surgery

AN AFGHAN infant taken to the US for critical heart surgery died yesterday, two days after his joyous homecoming.

Army medics said 16-month-old Qudratullah Wardak’s repaired heart had likely given out, as his father tried in vain to comfort him in a muddy refugee camp close to a US base in the Afghan capital.

The boy had been treated at a children’s hospital in Indianapolis after Indiana National Guard soldiers and the Rotary Club organisation learned of his dangerous condition.

“This is a very sad day,” said US military spokesman Major Eric Bloom. “So many people, from around the world, came together to help this young Afghan boy.”

US troops had escorted the boy and his father back to the camp next to an Afghan military barracks on Wednesday.

More than 100 adults and children from the camp were waiting, and applauded wildly when the boy’s father, Hakim Gul, emerged from a pick-up truck clutching his son, who looked plump and healthy.

However, army medics sent to the camp yesterday found the boy lying under a small blanket on a bed placed in front of the family tent, his veiled mother weeping over him.

“It’s like the loss of our own child,” said Captain Michael Roscoe, one of the medics, blinking back tears.

An uncle, Abdul Malik, said the boy still seemed well yesterday after receiving a dose of medicine prescribed by the doctors in Indianapolis.

“They gave him his medicine for pain, and he seemed to calm down. His father felt for his heart again, then he asked me to try, but the heartbeat was gone. Everybody was crying,” said Mr Malik.