KUWAIT CITY, 17 April 2003 — A 12-year-old Iraqi boy who lost both arms, suffered extensive burns and was orphaned when a US missile hit his Baghdad home underwent surgery yesterday, hours after he was flown to Kuwait, doctors said.
Three consultant plastic surgeons performed “biological skin grafting” on Ali Ismail Abbas, effectively removing all dead skin tissue in a one-and-a-half hour operation, Health Ministry spokesman Ahmad Al-Shatti told AFP.
“He’s alright. They did a fantastic job. They all came out with a smile. I got very positive feedback.” The child’s arms were amputated above the elbow in Baghdad after he was the sole survivor among 20 others killed when their house was hit in an attack by the US-British coalition on March 30.
The boy’s suffering has touched the hearts of millions worldwide and sparked a high-profile campaign to save his life. Ali will be kept in the intensive care unit until Monday when “if all goes well, he will have a skin graft,” Shatti said.
The boy went into surgery around 1:00 p.m. (1000 GMT), Shatti said, for an estimated three-hour operation that only took half the time.
He arrived around 3:30 a.m. (0030 GMT) at the specialized Al-Babtain burns center where he was quickly diagnosed with burns to more than 20 percent of his body, plastic surgeon Imad Najada earlier told reporters at the hospital.
As he was being examined, Ali could be heard screaming and crying in agony. Ali will undergo skin grafting and, his condition permitting, be fitted with prosthetic arms designed to give him a degree of movement. He will also have to endure extensive rehabilitation.
Kuwait’s First Deputy Premier and Foreign Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah, who made the decision early Tuesday to take in the boy for treatment here, visited Ali in hospital yesterday morning, Shatti said.
After the initial prognosis, Najada said Ali was “stressed” and had infected wounds but appeared to be stable enough for what might be a series of operations and a long road to rehabilitation.
The surgeon added that Ali’s condition was not life-threatening and that there was “no need (for him) to go anywhere else, we can take care of it here.”
Najada said he anticipated the boy would only need a week to 10 days of initial treatment in the burns center, explaining it would initially involve replacing lost fluids and providing more blood to support the circulation. He said the boy had sustained burns primarily to the interior trunk and part of the scrotum.
Ali’s dazed and exhausted uncle, Muhammad Al-Sultani, told reporters on their arrival at the hospital that “all his family is dead.”
Medical staff in Baghdad had warned that they lacked the equipment to treat Ali and that he would die of blood poisoning if not taken abroad for specialized care. Ali’s plight, captured in news broadcasts and headlines around the world, has turned him into a symbol of the civilian suffering in the conflict.
Ali leaves behind scores of wounded Iraqis at the mercy of the collapsing Iraqi heath system. Baghdad’s three main hospitals are shut and doctors warn that those still open will follow suit if order is not restored to the Iraqi capital.
Iraqi and foreign doctors said Baghdad’s Medical City, Yarmouk and Al-Kindi hospitals were closed due to power cuts, a shortage of medicines and staff and fear of the looting that swept the city after Saddam Hussein’s rule collapsed last week.
“We are in very difficult situation with shortages of medicine, staff and equipment,” said Laith Sabih, a doctor at an orthopedic and plastic surgery hospital in Baghdad.
He said the hospital had only one small generator which worked a few hours a day so operations could be carried out. The International Committee of the Red Cross has promised a new generator. Without one, he said, the hospital would shut.
“There is a big shortage of power. I did surgery with a kerosene lamp,” said Jacques Beres, 61, a Belgian doctor with the French charity Aide Medicale Internationale, who said he had performed 50 operations since the war began.
Mobs have ransacked many of Baghdad’s hospitals and stolen medical supplies, prompting the ICRC to remind US-led forces in Iraq of their responsibilities under international law as an occupying power to protect vital public services.
Some of the city’s main hospitals with the capability for more sophisticated treatment, among the best in the Middle East before the war, were the worst hit by the looters.
