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

We first told you about her in July, little Rusul Jalal, whose right foot was disfigured by a missile attack in front of her home in Iraq. Doctor’s at Greenville Shriners Hospital amputated her foot earlier this summer. But in 2 weeks, she’ll be able to walk again, with a new prosthetic.

The road to recovery has been a long one for this fearless 7-year-old. In 2006 she survived a U.S. missile attack at her home in Iraq while playing hopscotch. Not only was her foot disfigured, the missile maimed her older sister and killed her brother. The ‘No More Victims” organization initially brought Rusul to the states for surgery. Group leaders say more donations are needed to help continue caring for Rusul’s recovery.

But her father says the young girl is not only recovering physically, but also mentally. Hussain Firas says his daughter has regained her joy, and is looking forward to walking again, and returning to school.

Video is available here.

GREENVILLE, S.C. — An Iraqi girl whose foot was injured in a bomb attack underwent surgery on Thursday to amputate her foot.

Family said 7-year-old Rusul Jalal’s right foot was severely injured when a missile hit near her home in Iraq. Doctors said her foot was turned almost completely backwards, forcing Jalal to walk on the bottom of her ankle bone rather than her foot.Jalal was flown to Greenville to undergo surgery at the Shriners Hospital by a group called No More Victims.

Doctors said they successfully removed Jalal’s foot during the two-hour surgery on Thursday.

Doctors said her recovery is expected to last just over a month. Jalal will then be fitted for a prosthetic foot.

Video Available Here

GREENVILLE, S.C. — An Iraqi girl who was left disfigured by a U.S. missile attack had surgery in Greenville Thursday.

Pediatric orthopaedic surgeons at the Greenville Shriners Hospital amputated 7-year-old Rusul Jalal’s right foot during a two-hour surgery.Melissa Bayles, hospital public relations specialist, said that Rusul came out of the surgery in great spirits and was in her room laughing and talking with her father.

Rusul is expected to stay in the hospital for a few days before going back to the Ronald McDonald house to recover.

Once her cast comes off in approximately four weeks and her leg is completely healed, Rusul will be fitted for a below the knee prosthetic.

The little girl is in Greenville for treatment after a missile attack disfigured her leg while playing outside her home in Iraq.

Rusul’s older sister Salee came to Greenville last summer for medical treatment for injuries she suffered in the same missile attack. She is back home in Iraq and WYFF was told she is doing well.

We’re unable to post these videos because of the technology they use, but there’s one story from Fox Carolina and another from WYFF Greenville.

Seven-year-old Rusul Jalal happily snapped pictures of the crowd that turned out to greet her Thursday at Greenville Spartanburg Airport, going through a disposable camera in minutes.
The Iraqi girl is in Greenville for treatment at Shriners Hospital for Children, the same place her cousin Salee Allawe was treated last year.

Raised as Salee’s sister, Rusul suffered muscle and bone damage to her right leg in the same 2006 missile strike that cost Salee her legs. Salee spent three months in Greenville before returning to Iraq. And at the airport, it was clear that she’d let Rusul know what she could expect.

“She told me, ‘You will be very lucky,’ ” Rusul said through interpreter Haifa Abdulhadi. “She said, don’t be worried. They are very good in medicine and they are going to fix your legs.”

Rusul and Salee’s father, Hussen Feras Allawe, left the town of Haswa, near Fallujah, about two months ago and traveled by car to Jordan.

“That’s a very scary part of the process because the roads are not safe,” said Lisa Hall, a member of No More Victims Greenville, the group that brought both girls to the Upstate. “You can get caught in crossfire or stopped and robbed.”

On Tuesday, once the visas were in order, they flew to New York. And today, Rusul will have her first visit with doctors at Shriners.

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ASHEVILLE – In September, Anne Craig went from despair to hope when she met Salee Allawe, a 9-year-old Iraqi girl who lost both legs in a U.S. bomb attack near her home.

“I knew I could do something about the devastation that’s been caused in Iraq,” Craig said. “I decided then to start a chapter of No More Victims here in Asheville.”

No More Victims is a national relief organization that works to get medical sponsorship for war-injured Iraqi children and to forge ties between the children, their families and communities in the United States. It is the subject of the monthly movie night at the Unitarian/Universalist Church on Friday.

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