WHAT'S HAPPENING NOW Noora had successful skull replacement surgery on December 12th, and is now recuperating. She's expected to return home to Iraq in January. Mustafa Abed, whose life was literally saved in Portland, Oregon, and his father, Ahmed, have returned home to a welcoming celebration in Fallujah. ALSO: Visas have been issued for Mustafa Ghazwan and his father. They will arrive in San Francisco soon. And little Rusul received a prosthetic foot in Greenville, SC and is back home in Iraq, walking to school for the first time!
A 3-year-old Iraqi boy whose hearing was destroyed when a U.S. missile struck his next-door neighbor’s house last year will arrive in San Francisco Wednesday to undergo restorative surgery.
Mustafa Ghazwan lost his hearing on June 17, 2007 when a U.S. missile struck his neighborhood in the Iraqi city of Baqouba, according to the Los Angeles-based non-profit No More Victims.
The organization brings children injured in the war in Iraq to the United States for community-sponsored medical treatment, and has arranged for Mustafa to receive a cochlear implant and rehabilitative treatment at University of California, San Francisco Medical Center.
The implant was donated by a private company and the surgery will be performed by Dr. Lawrence Lustig, director of the Douglas Grant Cochlear Implant Center at UCSF, pro bono, according to the organization.
Ann Cothran, national community coordinator for No More Victims, said the organization focuses on children wounded by U.S. forces and has brought 10 Iraqi children to the U.S. for treatment so far.
SAN FRANCISCO (KGO) — A little boy from Iraq got a warm welcome in San Francisco, as he arrived for surgery that will allow him to hear again. He’s getting the help at UCSF, thanks to the generosity of a number of people.
Little Mustafa Ghazwan arrived in the arms of his father. he smiled and waved at about two dozen well wishers, reporters and photographers behind the security glass. At the baggage claim area, Mustafa charmed everyone.
The adoring crowd gave him a welcome any 3-year-old would love — it came with lots of stuffed animals. But the balloons were his favorite. they brought the biggest smile of all on his tiny face. In June of 2007, Mustafa was playing in his Baquba home during a U.S. airstrike. A missile exploded in a neighboring house. The blast killed three other children. Mustafa lived but he lost his hearing.
The child’s father Ghazwan Al-Nadawi says he wrote letters pleading for medical help for his son. “He submitted many request to many people in Iraq, but nobody responded but this organization,” said Al-Nadawi through an interpreter.
A 3-year-old Iraqi boy whose hearing was destroyed by a missile blast in the Iraq war was greeted at San Francisco International Airport Wednesday morning by spectators, balloons, TV cameras and many of those responsible for initiating the grassroots effort that brought him to the Bay Area for reparative ear surgery and rehabilitation.
Mustafa Ghazwan, who lost his hearing on June 17, 2007 when a U.S. missile struck near his home in the Iraqi city of Baqouba, smiled and waved from his father’s arms at the welcoming party assembled behind the glass at the arrivals gate at SFO.
Scattered throughout the crowd were members of the informal coalition of community groups that arranged to underwrite the medical care needed to restore Mustafa’s hearing and repair his ability to speak and interact, a process that could take up to four months and is not available to him in Iraq.
SAN FRANCISCO - Cheers rose Wednesday morning when 3-year-old Mustafa Ghazwan came through the security gates at San Francisco airport.Mustafa didn’t hear a sound.
Totally deafened in a U.S. bombing raid in 2007 that killed three other children and an old man in his village near Baghdad, Mustafa is in San Francisco to receive a cochlear implant that will allow him to hear again.
He was greeted by five TV cameras and 30 well-wishers, including a sizable Marin contingent that spent most of the past year raising money and making arrangements for an implant operation at the University of California at San Francisco on Jan. 16.
Mustafa smiled, wide-eyed, as three stuffed toys and a bouquet of balloons were thrust into his hands. His dad, 33-year-old Ghazwan Al Nadawi, stood at his side.
“This will mean a whole new life for him,” said UCSF neurologist Dr. Dan Lowenstein of Mill Valley, a member of the hospital’s Iraqi Action Group. “It’s just wonderful.”
The war in Iraq is spurring more Bay Area physicians and activists to help treat civilians wounded in the conflict.At the University of California, San Francisco, a three-year-old Iraqi boy was flown in New Year’s Eve to begin treatment for his hearing loss after a U.S. missile struck near his home in the Iraqi city of Baqouba.
Mustafa Ghazwan, who lost his hearing on June 17, 2007, is scheduled to undergo reparative ear surgery and several months of rehabilitation in order to repair his ability to speak and interact.
A rambunctious 3-year-old boy from Iraq is happily settling into San Francisco life as he prepares for cochlear implant surgery to allow him to hear and talk again.
Mustafa Ghazwan lives with his parents and younger brother in Baquba, Iraq. On June 12, 2007, a U.S. jet fired a missile into a building next door and the explosion left the boy deaf. He was just learning to speak at the time, but hasn’t been able to say anything since. His parents have said Mustafa grew increasingly frustrated by his deafness, banging his head against walls and floors.
The story came to the attention of Cole Miller, a Los Angeles writer and founder of No More Victims, a program to bring Iraqi children injured in the war to the United States for medical care.
“These are the kinds of human stories that are behind the missiles that fall,” Miller said.
SAN FRANCISCO — A 3-year-old Iraqi boy whose hearing was destroyed when a U.S. missile struck his next-door neighbor’s house last year will arrive in San Francisco Wednesday to undergo restorative surgery.
Mustafa Ghazwan lost his hearing on June 17, 2007 when a U.S. missile struck his neighborhood in the Iraqi city of Baqouba, according to the Los Angeles-based nonprofit No More Victims.
The organization brings children injured in the war in Iraq to the U.S. for community-sponsored medical treatment, and has arranged for Mustafa to receive a cochlear implant and rehabilitative treatment at UCSF Medical Center.
In the days before doctors were scheduled to repair her shattered skull earlier this month, Noora Afif Abdulhameed occasionally talked about what was going to happen to her. The words would tumble out all at once, in one sentence, in between the games and laughs that blocked out the fear.
“I think surgery Friday,” the 7-year-old Iraqi girl would say to her friend Susi Eggenberger, an Arundel resident who has been like a mother to her during her stay in Maine.
“Tomorrow surgery.”
“It’s been on her mind a lot,” Eggenberger said the day before the surgery. “Needing a few more hugs today.”
As scary as the prospect of brain surgery was to Noora and her father, Afif Abdulhameed Otaiwi, it was what they had been waiting for since being flown to Portland five months ago by No More Victims, a nonprofit group that brings war-injured Iraqi children to the United States for treatment.
On Dec. 11, doctors were just 24 hours away from repairing the damage inflicted by an American sniper’s bullet two years ago in Noora’s hometown of Heet. The bullet made a large hole in Noora’s skull and destroyed her cerebral membrane. In several operations in Iraq, doctors removed pieces of bone and covered the gaping wound with skin from Noora’s thigh to temporarily protect her brain.
But to be whole again, Noora needed replacement “bone” attached to her skull, a prosthetic that would be with her the rest of her life.
