KUWAIT, 8 August 2003 — Thirteen-year-old Iraq boy Ali, badly wounded and orphaned in the US-led war on Iraq, left Kuwait for London yesterday to receive artificial limbs at the expense of the Kuwaiti government.
Ali Ismaeel Abbas and another Iraqi boy, Ahmed Mohammed Hamza, who lost a leg and a hand, will be treated at the Roehampton Rehabilitation Center in London.
Ali touched hearts around the world after losing both arms and most of his family, including his father and pregnant mother, during the war on Iraq.
He was flown to Kuwait on April 16 to be treated for his badly burnt torso. Ali received a skin graft and has now almost recovered from his burns. “I want to return back to Iraq after I get treated. I want to go to school and become a translator, and drive my car up and down Baghdad streets,” Ali told Reuters before his departure.
Zafar Khan, chairman of the Limbless Association, which is affiliated to the Roehampton Rehabilitation Center, said it would take three to six months for the two boys to adapt to their new artificial limbs.
Khan, who himself has an artificial leg, was accompanying the two to Britain on a private jet provided by Kuwaiti Prime Minister Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.
Imad Al-Najada, a Kuwaiti plastic surgeon who was also traveling with the boys, said they needed special artificial limbs to fit on the grafted skin they have at the amputated ends of their limbs.
“They will be able then to use three fingers in each hand, and thus be able to do normal and essential hand movements,” Najada said.
The limbs will have to be changed every six months as their bodies grow, he added. Each limb would cost between $30,000 to $40,000, Najada added.
Health Minister Mohammad Al-Jarallah said the Kuwaiti government will foot the bill for all medical care and related costs until the boys reached adolescence.
The boys, who traveled on British travel documents, were due to return to Kuwait after their treatment and then travel on to Iraq.
Meanwhile, Canadian authorities has given tentative approval to Ali to immigrate to Canada, a lawyer involved in the case said yesterday. Falath Hafuth, an emergency care physician at Cambridge Hospital west of Toronto who is of Iraqi origin, was so moved by his plight he offered to adopt him.
Raj Chahal, a lawyer helping Hafuth, said Canadian immigration officials indicated Abbas and a relative have been given initial approval to come to Canada after he receives treatment in Britain.
“The tough part of it (immigration) has been dealt with and it’s okay, but it’s subject to final statutory requirements being fulfilled, which should be dealt with shortly while Ali is in England getting his prosthesis.”
“It’s a matter of formalities now,” he added.
