Visar finally makes it home

Visar's first trip was cancelled on Wednesday

A Kosovan boy who underwent life-saving treatment in Britain has finally returned home following a bureaucratic delay.

Two-year-old Visar Zymberi left Britain for Kosovo on Wednesday after surgery in Aberdeen to correct a throat condition.

But he and his mother, Sadije, were sent straight back to Gatwick Airport when they reached Macedonia because immigration officials had refused to accept their United Nations travelling documents.

Visar underwent treatment in Aberdeen

The pair boarded a flight at Leeds-Bradford airport bound for Kosovo on Friday with an assurance that this time everything would be in order.

Mrs Zymberi said through an interpreter: "It has been a difficult time but we are glad to be going home.

"We would like to thank everybody in Britain for the care we have been given. We are scared but excited to be going back."

The pair flew back to Pristina on a plane carrying 126 other Kosovars, who had been staying in accommodation across the United Kingdom.

Geoff Morris, from London and South East Direct Aid to Kosovo, said: "The delays of the last few days have been regrettable, but at least this flight takes them directly back to Kosovo rather than having to land in Macedonia and go home from there."

Visar, who comes from a mountain village in the Drenica Valley, travelled to Scotland in April with No Frontiers to undergo medical treatment.

He was suffering from a congenital condition which meant he was unable to eat solid food.

Normal life

Since birth he had survived on milk from his mother and would have died without medical intervention.

Staff at the Royal Aberdeen Children's Hospital, where Visar was treated, gave him a clean bill of health last week and said he could now expect to lead a normal life.

The family had been living in a cowshed before travelling to Scotland because their house had been destroyed in the fighting in Kosovo between the Serbs and Kosovan forces.

The Drenica Valley region was one of those worst hit during the Kosovo conflict, during which Visar lost his father and grandfather.