Ali's anger: US pilot should burn too
uploaded 14 Oct 2003
Iraqi orphan Ali Abbas says he hoped the US pilot who bombed his family would be made to suffer as he had.
The 13-year-old has been fitted with artificial arms in a London hospital after being severely burned in a missile attack on Baghdad early in the conflict.
Ali said he still had vivid memories of the night of the strike that killed his parents and 13 other relatives. He said: "I keep asking myself: 'Why are they bombing Iraqi people? What have we done to them?. I hoped that the pilot who hit our house would be burned as I am burned and my family were burned."
The youngster said he had mixed feelings about the British following his ordeal. "When I was in the hospital they sent me letters, but they still helped the Americans," he told ITV1's Ali Abbas - Child of Hope, A Tonight Special to be screened this evening.
He recalled huddling with his family during the bombing, and later being stopped by the police as he was taken to hospital.
"They asked questions like: 'Where are you going? Where are you heading? Who is this?' Then I looked at my arms and I saw them gone. They said: 'It is a hopeless case, it's hopeless'."
Images of Ali lying in a filthy cot in a Baghdad hospital, close to death, shocked the world. The teenager, who is now looked after by his uncle, was airlifted to a hospital in Kuwait for treatment.
He was later brought to Britain where he has been fitted with two artificial arms at Queen Mary's Hospital in Roehampton, south-west London, a world-renowned centre for working with amputees.
He now has a cosmetic prosthetic on his left side and a state-of-the-art artificial limb on the right with an electrode touching the muscle on his stump to open and close his hand. Ali had a Manchester United tattoo specially put on the new right arm.
He now faces months of occupational therapy and, while he is growing, the limbs will need to be replaced at intervals. He plans to return to his country at some point, where he hopes to go to school and enjoy some "proper Iraqi cooking".
Source: Ananova
