Sudanese air crash boy flown to Britain for surgery

A three-year-old boy who was the only survivor of an air crash in Sudan that killed 115 people was flown to Britain today for surgery.

Mohammed el-Fateh Osman was found in a bush by a nomad after the Sudan Airways Boeing 737 went down just after taking off from Port Sudan.

Osman, whose right leg was badly injured, was in stable condition before leaving the Khartoum Police Hospital where he was also treated for burns, doctors said.

He was accompanied on the flight to London by a team of doctors and nurses as well as his father El-Fateh Osman and his aunt Mariam Abu Saba.

The boy’s mother died in the crash. His father and elder sister live in Omdurman, the twin city of the capital Khartoum.

The president of the United Arab Emirates, Sheik Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan, hired the air ambulance.

He has said he will pay for the child’s transfer to London and his treatment.

Omar el-Amin, a doctor who monitored Osman, said the hospital had been told to accept the offer.

“We have all the facilities here to perform the operations, but the government is saying we could not but accept this offer in the best interest of the child,” he said.

The Sudanese Foreign Ministry issued the child and his relatives special passports for the trip and the British Embassy granted them visas.

An airline official said the air ambulance left Khartoum at 0530 Irish time. It was unclear when it would arrive, or which hospital in London Osman would be taken to.

Aviation experts have been probing the airliner’s black box and other evidence in a bid to learn what caused the crash. Initial reports cited a technical problem.

Among the dead were three people from India and one each from Britain, China, Ethiopia and the United Arab Emirates.