April 12, 2003
Ali 'dead in days' if he stays in siege hospital
From Janine di Giovanni in Saddam City
THE world of Ali Ismail Abbas has shrunk to four dirty walls and a polyester blanket. Burns cover more than 35 per cent of his body. His arms, blown off in an American rocket attack on his house two weeks ago that killed his parents, stop just below his shoulders.
His body has been so ravaged by war that even he cannot bear to look at it. He asks his aunt, Jumeira Abbas, to cover his torso with a towel.
âOh God, I want my hands back,â he whimpers, his face â the only part of his body untouched by injury â crumpling in tears.
The room where Ali lies on a dirty bed is unsterile and his burns are at risk of becoming infected. Mowafak Gorea, the director of the hospital, says wearily that if the child is not moved within days he will die from septicemia.
But Ali is at risk from another, more imminent danger. The hospital where he lies in agony â there are no painkillers strong enough to reduce his pain â is under siege from looters and rogue militias. There is an iron gate in front of the hospital, but it is not strong enough to protect the patients in the hallways whose bodies are peppered with shrapnel.
Outside, the streets of Saddam City â now renamed Revolution City â are full of looters, Fedayin and foreign fighters and it looks more like Mogadishu or Beirut than a city under American control.
Earlier in the day, a fighter from Syria was dragged into the hospital from the street by enraged locals after being found at a checkpoint with an explosive strapped to his body. His fate hung in the balance.
âNow we donât know who is fighting who outside,â Dr Gorea said.
A handful of civilians have banded together, armed with Kalashnikovs and long knives, to protect the hospital, the last functioning vestige of this chaotic slum. Their commander is a local sheikh who was imprisoned and tortured for nine years under Saddam Husseinâs regime and who cannot remember how old he is because of his âlost yearsâ.
The motley defenders stand guard, watching as lorries unload more casualties inside the gates, but hour by hour the streets descend further into anarchy. Checkpoints, armed by whoever has a gun and decides to control that portion of the turf, spring up suddenly and without warning. âWhere are the Americans?â screamed one armed civilian who now controls a checkpoint near the hospital. âWe thought they were coming to help us!â It is a complaint that is heard frequently in Revolution City, the home of nearly a million Shias who have not forgotten that they were badly let down after the last Gulf War, when they tried to rise up against the Iraqi President. A small group of US Marines said that they were trying to secure the hospital, and a few tanks were moving in. But trying to control the volatile neighbourhood in the wake of Saddamâs downfall seems a Herculean task.
Revolution City hospital is now the only functioning hospital in Baghdad. The others, including al-Kindi, where Ali was first taken two weeks ago after a rocket crashed into the house where he was sleeping, have been gutted.
It is believed that al-Kindi has now been taken over by a Shia sheikh from Najaf who is using it as a base. Some of the drugs that have been stolen from al-Kindi and other wards were handed over, ironically, by looters to Revolution Hospital. âBut I will not touch them; they are stolen goods,â says Dr Gorea, a surgeon who has not left the inside of the hospital for 23 days and who has not seen nor had word of his own family for a week.
For more than 300 patients, many of whom were taken by double-decker bus as the other Baghdad hospitals were stripped, he has only 22 doctors and 120 staff. It is a third of the staff that he had before the war. While he says that they have enough medical supplies and a generator pumps electricity and water, those staff are nearing exhaustion.
Some of them, such as Ali Ismailâs devoted nurse, Fatin, continue to work through the madness. She tends Ali, wiping his brow and trying to help him to sleep at night when the pain is the worse. Sometimes he accidentally calls her Hannan, then apologises: âMy wounds hurt so much, and I feel like I have a brick on my brain,â he says. âI canât remember much of anything.â
He does, however, remember his dead parents: his mother, who was five monthsâ pregnant when she died, and his father, a taxi driver. He remembers his six sisters, most of whom were injured in the rocket attack and whom he has not seen since. He weeps when he thinks of his favourite brother, Abbas, who was also killed when the missile struck.
âWe used to play football together,â he says. âWe used to fish together. Now how can I do that without my hands?â Dr Gorea says that Ali seems to have improved, but is doubtful that he will make a full recovery. Unless he is moved, the doctor believes that he could die within days.
Médicins Sans Frontières, when contacted by The Times about Ali, said that it could not help. US Marines, also contacted by The Times, said that even if he were removed, his injuries were so devastating that he probably had only a one in five chance of survival.
âIf he were in the US, with excellent medical treatment, he would have a 50-50 chance,â one said. âI know itâs sad, but given the fact that he has 35 per cent burns, it is probably around 20 per cent.â
Civil affairs officers based at the Palestine Hotel did begin making inquiries about airlifting Ali, but had to make sure that the area was secure before they could go in. âWe canât send a chopper in there unless it is safe,â one said.
One thing is certain: Revolution City is not yet safe. As Aliâs fate was being decided, he asked for one small thing â a kebab. The hospital cannot supply food and Ali has been eating only rice and milk. The thought of the sandwich brought a slight smile to his face. Outside, the streets of Baghdad were full of smoke, shops were closed, looting was widespread and there was less chance of finding a kebab than of the Americans securing peace within a few days.
âYou have seen one Ali, but there are thousands of Alis in this city,â Dr Gorea said. âHe has been promised so much. He will die before those promises are fulfilled.â
How to help
The appeal set up to help Ali Ismail Abbas has raised £50,000 in four days. The picture of Ali, 12, lying badly burnt in a Baghdad hospital became a focus of concern for casualties of war after its publication this week.
On Tuesday the Limbless Association started Aliâs Fund for the Limbless of Iraq to provide prosthetic body parts for him and other victims of the war. A spokeswoman said that the response had been âabsolutely phenomenalâ.
To make a donation to Aliâs Fund: contact the Limbless Association on 020-8788 1777 or
www.limbless-association.org.
The British Red Cross, on behalf of the International Committee of the Red Cross: 08705 125 125 or
www.redcross.org.uk/iraqcrisis.
Unicef is also raising money for the 12 million children of Iraq:
www.unicef.org.uk/emergency or 08457 312 312.
Rs7