One Small Thanksgiving Story

By Stuart Heady t r u t h o u t Report
Friday 25 November 2005

Alan Pogue, a photographer who has pursued the use of his camera as an extension of the mercy work he did on the battlefields of Vietnam as a US Army medic, went to Amman just after the hotel bombings to usher Alaa' and her parents through the process and accompany them to the hospital. Alan and Cole Miller, who lives in Los Angeles, comprise most of No More Victims, an effort to save one child at a time from the fate of living with untreated war wounds. Why only one child at a time? Because that is one better than none.

Alaa' Khalid Hamdan and her mother Zaynab (or Zainab) Mohammed Assi, 25, were injured in their home at a party for a group of children under 10 years old. A US tank crew was randomly shelling the area in Anbar Province near the Jordanian border on May 3, 2005.

Presumably, they were after insurgents, although random shelling of civilian neighborhoods would seem to be a remarkably inexact strategy. According to locals, a sniper set up on the tallest building in the village (Al Qaim, also known as Husayba) shot at everything that moved: men, women, children, even elderly people. Khalid Abd, the father, 27, was at work when the tank round struck the family's home.

Alaa' suffered shrapnel wounds on most of her body when the shell landed in the party. She had rushed abdominal surgery on severed intestines that left her with a protuberant belly from poorly sutured muscle and connective tissue.

Her eyes have tiny metal slivers in them, which if not removed very soon, will cause her to go blind permanently. Her mother had one eye completely destroyed in the attack and the other also has embedded metal slivers. She lost two sons, age 4 and 5 as well. Khalid's brother's three young sons were killed. Some weeks later, Zaynab, who at that point was about one month pregnant, was hit in the abdomen by a US Army sniper. A couple of months after that, she was riding in a car with her father when another tank shell landed near them. She was again hit in the abdomen, this time with shrapnel lodged in her bladder.

It was this case that connected with No More Victims, basically run by one man, Cole Miller, who works as a freelance writer in Los Angeles. The problem is to save one war-injured Iraqi child at a time, since the funding at this point is very limited.

This got started when Miller contacted Alan Pogue in August of 2002 to see if he had a photograph that could be used in a poster expressing opposition to the imminent war against Iraq ... Pogue had gone to Iraq in 2000 and taken a photograph of a girl of 13, Asraa, whose right arm had been amputated just above the elbow after a missile struck her remote village of Abu Flos.

As war protests around the world increased in size and intensity, this photograph was downloaded over 10,000 times and used as a large poster at demonstrations on every continent.
Miller wondered who she was, contacted Alan, and the two of them discussed where she might be. When Alan took the photograph, he had almost gotten off a bus when he turned around, noticed her and took the photo before the bus started to roll.

Rehabilitation doctors, a hospital in Houston, and a donor willing to finance a prosthetic arm were located in anticipation of a successful search. As the war raged on, the problem of finding her near Mosul seemed uncertain at best. But they made the trip and found her. In early 2004 they brought Asraa Mizyad and her father to Houston and she spent about two months in rehabilitation. Thrilled with a pretty good looking new arm on which to wear her first wristwatch, she is now back in school in her village.

Encouraged by success, but disappointed that so many needed help, Miller searched for cases that might be doable with limited resources.

Finally, an Iraqi doctor who knew a hotel manager who knew somebody who knew a Stanford law student from Florida whom Cole Miller had met at an event on campus, caused a connection to click between Alaa' and her mother and an Orlando, Florida, medical facility that will do Alaa's eye surgery and other treatment pro bono. Senators Boxer, Kennedy, and Congressmen Kucinich and McDermott sent letters to the US embassy in Amman to support the effort.

Alaa' was a prime candidate because she is so young, and her natural growth will help a lot if corrective work is done soon. Otherwise, she faces a rather bleak future, if she has to grow up blind in a landscape full of wounded and maimed young women and men.

Zaynab, the mother, didn't make it through the US embassy process. During an interview between a staff person and her husband, Khalid, it came out that she was 3 months pregnant. Even though the projected hospital stay was no longer than two months, her medical visa was denied.

Some work by Alan Pogue in Amman and Cole Miller in the US, exercising contacts with Doctors Without Borders, produced a nearly immediate gynecologist consult. At least her baby girl is miraculously unscathed and healthy. They think they can arrange some prenatal care, an obstetrician, and an opthalmic surgical specialist for her eyes in Amman.

Alaa' and her dad are flying to the US for Thanksgiving.

For updates on the unfolding story catch Alan Pogue's blog or visit NoMoreVictims.org.

Stuart Heady is a freelance writer who designed and maintains Alan Pogue's website and lives in Tsaile, Arizona.

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