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Asraa Mizyad Comes To America
by Dick Underhill and Michael Uhl
11/29/04 "ICH" -- At 10 a.m. January 25, 1999 a nine year old Iraqi girl named Asraa was walking home after finishing her mid-term examinations at the Al-Najid primary school in a remote village 30 minutes south of Basra. The 500 families of Abu Floos, located within the so-called No Fly Zone, were living on the edge of survival; their lives made even more difficult by U.S. imposed sanctions.
Asraa was suddenly knocked to the ground by the impact of an explosion from a U.S. fired missile. Multiple fragments had lodged in her head, chest, and abdomen, and severed her right arm just below the shoulder. Her father, Abdul-Ameir, found her lying unconscious on the ground. He picked her up and ran to a clinic. She was later transferred to a hospital in Basra, where she remained for five months. There was no apology from the US military, and Abdul-Ameir had to sell virtually everything he owned to pay for her medical care.
An hour before the Abu-Floos bombing, in a working class neighborhood on the north end of Basra, as four year old Mustafa and his six year old brother Haider were on their way to the store to buy candy, another U.S. missile fell. Haider was killed instantly; Mustafa’s young body absorbed more than 130 pieces of shrapnel.
In early 2001 photographer Alan Pogue went to Iraq as part of a Veterans For Peace project to help restore water treatment plants destroyed by U.S. forces during the first Gulf War. At that time, 5,000 Iraqi children were dying each month, many from amoebic dysentery caused by the untreated water in a public health crisis made even more urgent under sanctions that blocked efforts for reconstruction.
As Alan was getting off a bus in Basra, he took one final glance at the passengers. His eyes met those of a young girl with a scarf covering her hair, and a terrible scar where an arm should be. There was no time to talk. Alan snapped two pictures as the bus prepared to pull away.
While Alan was in Iraq, he had also taken pictures of Mustafa and the boy’s mother Um Haider. He’d already learned their story, but had failed to discover the identity of the girl on the bus. In September 2002, Cole Miller, a Los Angeles-based freelance writer, contacted Alan and asked if he had a photograph that would be suitable for an anti-war poster. Alan sent Cole the photograph of Asra’a; Cole made the poster and created a website to facilitate distribution. Cole became committed to the wider goal of restoring health and well-being to victims of war, and suggested that they go to Iraq to find Asra’a and bring her to the US for medical care. But Alan didn’t know her name, or where she lived.
And then something amazing happened. In November 2002 Ellen Barfield, Vice-President of VFP, saw one of Cole’s posters at the School of the America’s rally outside Ft Benning, Georgia. Ellen recognized the girl as a child she too had photographed in Abu Floos in 2000.
Four weeks later, Alan and Ellen traveled to Iraq to search for the girl in his photograph. Returning to Abu Floos, they showed the picture to some boys from the village, and were immediately escorted to the house of Asraa Amir Mizyad. After visiting with Asraa and her family, they established the date and place of the attack, which took her arm.
In January 2003 Alan and Cole began preparations to return to Iraq to bring Asraa and Mustafa back to the U.S. for medical treatment. Final papers for Mustafa and his mother, Um Haider, were approved on March 14th. Um Haider and Mustafa managed to get to Amman, Jordan. Asraa was issued an Iraqi passport on March 18, 2003. The next day the American invasion began, and they were unable to get out.
Meanwhile in Amman, tireless efforts by many peace activists supported by Representatives Dennis Kucinich and Lloyd Doggett, and, at the last minute, financial sponsorship from actor Sean Penn, became the crucial elements for obtaining medical visas for Mustafa and Um Haider. They traveled to Los Angeles, where a team of doctors provided a free evaluation and treatment. Mustafa and his mother later traveled in the U.S. on a VFP sponsored tour.
In March of 2004 Alan and Cole prepared once more to bring Asraa and her father to Houston, Texas, where doctors at the Shriner’s Hospital volunteered to provide surgery and prosthetic services free of charge. By August 9th, when the two activists boarded their flight to the Middle East, the violence in Iraq was increasing. In Kuwait they were advised to wait a few days to see if conditions would improve.
Alan recommended pressing on. Things might get better, he reasoned, but they might also get worse; and get worse they did. In addition to stepped-up military activity, there was red tape to contend with. Alan and Cole were denied NGO passes by the Humanitarian Operations Center (HOC). The Kuwaiti border guards required a visa issued by the new provisional Iraqi government, but there was no Iraqi consulate in Kuwait to issue one. Asraa and her father would have to come out on their own.
They contacted Um Haider in Basra. She borrowed a car, and drove to Abu Floos, where she sent copies of Asraa’s and her father’s passports to Alan and Cole. Several days passed. Finally, visas were obtained from the Kuwait authorities, and on September 3rd, Asraa and her father, Abdul Ameir Salman, crossed from Iraq to the waiting smiles of Alan and Cole. Asraa and her father, along with Alan (Cole had preceded them), finally arrived in Houston on September 12th.
Asraa received a prosthetic arm and rehabilitative treatment free of charge at Shriners Hospital in Houston. They travel to Cole’s hometown of Los Angeles in November. Alan and Cole hope that other communities around the US organize to provide medical care for the thousands of Iraqi children who have been injured in the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.
You can meet Asraa and her father on Wednesday, December 8th, at the Venice United Methodist Church, at 7:30 PM. They will also be at the Unitarian Church of Orange County in Anaheim, on Friday December 3rd, at 7:30 PM.
Contact Cole Miller at 323-644-2889 – email: musicalcole@hotmail.com
or Frank Dorrel at 310-838-8131 email: fdorrel@addictedtowar.com
For More Information, call (323) 644-2889 or (310) 838-8131
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