No More Victims - News Archive

Noora Afif Abdulhameed sits quietly next to her papa in a waiting room at Maine Medical Center, waiting to be called in for her first pre-operative test.

She’d slept in until 7 on this Tuesday morning in July, so breakfast was just a little milk from the hospital cafeteria. Now she’s waiting for some cream applied to the backs of her hands to numb her skin so that a routine IV may be inserted.

The 6-year-old was scheduled for a CT scan at 8:30 a.m. to give doctors a better picture of damage to her skull, which was partially shattered by an American sniper’s bullet on Oct. 23, 2006, in her hometown of Heet, Iraq.

Noora seems cheerful – she had spoken to other members of her family in Iraq on the phone the night before – but a bit nervous.

“It’s stirring up old memories for her, I think, but Afif convinced her it’s not an operation,” says Susi Eggenberger. The Arundel resident and her husband helped bring Noora and her father, Afif Abdulhameed Otaiwi, to Portland for surgery to repair Noora’s head, and are guiding them through their stay.

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PORTLAND, Ore. - A 6-year-old Iraqi boy who lost part of his leg to a U.S. missile arrived in Portland on Tuesday so doctors can fit him with a prosthetic leg and perform surgery to fix his colon.

The boy, named Mustaffa, was injured when he was just 2 years old and doctors are hoping to give him a better life.

It took 10 months to get the young boy here.  Local organizers worked with a group called No More Victims to arrange treatment for him free of charge.  Shriner’s Hospital, Doernbecher Children’s Hospital and the Ronald McDonald House are all helping as well.

Mustaffa’s first doctor appointment will be on Thursday.

When the air raid began, Nidhal Aswad gripped her child in her arms and ran, but she couldn’t escape the nightmare that her boy’s world would become.

A U.S. missile struck a nearby building, knocking the two to the street in Fallujah, western Iraq. When Aswad regained consciousness, she heard her 2-year-old, Mustafa Ahmed Abed, screaming. Shrapnel had severed his bowel, left leg and most of his hip.

That terrible day in November 2004, Aswad couldn’t have imagined that nearly four years later, strangers from the same country that fired that missile would donate money and medical expertise to help her child heal. She couldn’t have dreamed, in other words, of the scene that unfolded Tuesday at Portland International Airport, after her husband and son touched down.

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News crew captures young Rusul’s first steps on a new prosthetic leg.

On the September 4 Recovery Zone, host Stephanie Potter speaks with Ned Rosch of the Portland chapter of No More Victims, an organization that helps to connect American communities to children who have been maimed by U.S. military actions in Iraq, and provide them with medical care, friendship and hope. The group here is sponsoring 5-year-old Mustafa Abed who lost his leg in a U.S. bombing raid.