Iraqi boy airlifted to burns unit

Iraqi boy airlifted to burns unit

Ali is led by Kuwaiti doctors into the hospital

A young Iraqi boy who lost both his arms and most of his family in a coalition air raid has arrived in Kuwait to begin specialist treatment for his injuries.

Ali Ismail Abbas, who is 12, left the Baghdad hospital where he was being treated and was flown to the southern Iraqi city of Nasiriya, from where he was airlifted to Kuwait.

Ali will be nursed "as long as he needs the treatment" in Kuwait's Ibn Sina hospital, which has a specialist burns treatment centre, a Kuwaiti health ministry spokesman said on Tuesday.

Medical staff treating the boy had warned that he would die unless he was immediately flown out of the country to receive special care.

Kuwait is already treating seven Iraqi children injured in the war, the ministry said. All are said to be stable.

Dr Imad al-Najjadah, one of the doctors who is now treating Ali, told the BBC that the medical team had stabilised him, and begun to remove dead tissue from the burns which are estimated to cover 35% of his body.

"We are trying to cover him with grafts from our skin bank," he said.

'Desperate situation'

Ali's father, his pregnant mother and siblings were killed in an attack on his home in Baghdad in which he was also severely burned.

The offer of help from Kuwait in his case came after a nurse at the Saddam City hospital in Baghdad, where he was being treated, issued a direct plea to coalition leaders.

"The situation is desperate. He will die if he stays," she wrote in a letter to US President George W Bush and UK Prime Minister Tony Blair.

Ali's voice is one among millions of children's voices we're not hearing

Unicef

Hope for young Ali

The long road to recovery

Mr Blair later responded during a meeting of the UK House of Commons, saying that British forces had been in contact with hospital authorities regarding such cases.

"We will do whatever we can to help him and others in similar situations," he said.

Ali's plight led to calls for coalition forces operating in Iraq to exercise more care regarding civilian casualties.

Several charitable organisations and media outlets also raised hundreds of thousands of dollars in money to enable him to be treated.

Appalling conditions

Ali's case also highlighted the appalling conditions in Iraqi hospitals, many of which are simply unable to cope, the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has warned.

"Hospitals are having to deal with ill children without the drugs they need and without water," spokeswoman Kathryn Irwin told BBC News Online.

"How can you treat someone without clean water?"

She also warned that unless hospitals got urgent help, more children would became dangerously malnourished, putting more pressure on the hospitals.

"Ali's voice is one among millions of children's voices we're not hearing," the spokeswoman said.