Asraa' Amir Mizyad was just 9 years old when the missile hit

[NNN0LHI]

http://media.www.dailytitan.com/media/storage/paper861/news/2008/02/19/Features/No.More.Victims.Aids.Suffering.Children.In.Iraq-3217565.shtml

No More Victims aids suffering children in Iraq
The organization forms projects to provide medical aid and wellness to those in need
By: Beth Stirnaman

Issue date: 2/19/08 Section: Features

Asraa' Amir Mizyad was just 9 years old when the missile hit. The young student was walking home after taking a test at Al Najed primary school in Iraq when the U.S. military launched its attack. During the assault on Jan. 25, 1999, a large piece of shrapnel tore Asraa's arm from her body and left her with multiple chest and abdominal wounds. A piece of shrapnel that cannot be removed, for fear of killing her, will most likely remain lodged in her skull for the rest of her life.

Over a year after Asraa' lost her arm, photographer Alan Pogue met her while visiting Iraq. He was there to take part in a project to rebuild a water treatment plant in Basra. Pogue took a photo of Asraa' during his stay, not knowing the impact the photo would eventually have. Pogue went back to Iraq in 2002 and found Asraa' still in need of medical care. A friend of Pogue's named Cole Miller made a poster of the young girl and started distributing it widely, giving a face to the collateral damage of war.

Since then, the movement sparked by the simple portrait of a girl without an arm has given rise to the organization No More Victims. No More Victims is "a non profit, non-sectarian, humanist organization" working "to restore the health and well-being of victims of war and to advocate and educate for peace," according to its Web site. The founders of the organization, Miller and Pogue, worked to find the care Asraa' needed. After a visa finally arrived to allow Asraa' to come to the United States, they brought her to Shriners Hospital in Houston, Texas in 2004 where she received a prosthetic arm. Anne Cothran, the National Community Coordinator for No More Victims reported that Asraa' is currently doing well in her home of Abu Floos and believes that she is graduating from high school this year.

But Asraa' is not the only Iraqi citizen who has been denied medical attention.

"According to many reports, Iraq had the best medical centers in all the Middle East, and now the medical system has almost entirely been destroyed," Miller said in a phone interview. "The country has been torn to pieces."

[JohnyCanuck]

1. I guess everyone remembers this picture that always tugs at my heart strings

After seeing that picture, I has assumed that the girl had died from the wounds she received in the bomb attack by US aircraft during the Iraq invasion. However I read later that she had survived having her feet blown off and was living with her grandparents. I believe the man pictured lifting her out of the rubble was her uncle. The little girl already had one strike against her before this tragedy occurred as she had been born a deaf-mute. Unfortunately No More Victims will probably not be lacking in clients for their services for the foreseeable future.

[JohnyCanuck]

2. Found the link to the update on Ibtihal Jassem

Here is the caption to the photo above from http://revulsions.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_archive.html

9-year-old Ibtihal Jassem is rescued by her uncle Jaber Jouda, in Basra, Iraq, in this photo dated Saturday March 22, 2003, after the bombing of the Mshan neighbourhood by coalition warplanes. Born deaf and mute, Jassem not only lost her right leg in the U.S. bombing of Basra two days after the war in Iraq began, but also all seven members of her family. After she was rescued by Jaber Jouda, who found her with her right leg almost severed, Jassem has lived with her grandparents.(AP Photo/Nabil El Jourana)

[JohnyCanuck]

3. Here's a 2004 photo of Ibtihal.

I am glad to see that from the photo she appears to be doing well in spite of the trauma and injuries she suffered.


Posing for the camera, 9-year-old Ibtihal Jassem sits near her destroyed home in Basra, Iraq, Wednesday, March 17, 2004. Born deaf and mute, Jassem not only lost her right leg in the U.S. bombing of Basra two days after the war in Iraq began, but also all seven members of her family. After she was rescued by her uncle Jaber Jouda, who found her with her right leg almost severed, Jassem has lived with her grandparents since the March 22 2003 bombing of the Mshan neighbourhood by coalition warplanes. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)
http://revulsions.blogspot.com/2005_11_01_archive.html

[slipslidingaway]

5. Tugs at my heart strings as well, thanks for posting the follow up

information.

[JohnyCanuck]

6. You're welcome. n/t

[slipslidingaway]

4. Putting a face to the name...

photo on top right
http://nomorevictims.org/

[JohnyCanuck]

9. Here's the photo

[NNN0LHI]

10. Darn she is beautiful

Thank you very much for posting this and others to this thread.

You are a good man JohnyCanuck. They don't come no better. Its been a real pleasure knowing you these years. Hope for a lot more.

Don

[JohnyCanuck]

11. Thanks for the kind words Don,

I guess I am something of a softy where kids are concerned. I don't have any of my own, but I've got a niece and a nephew, almost grown up now, and I remember how attached and protective I felt towards them when they were small. It did my heart good to find out through your post about No More Victims and to know that there are Americans making such an effort to ensure that by helping these children some good can come out of the evilness of war. :yourock:

[JohnyCanuck]

7. Cole Miller (founding director) talks about No More Victims (You Tube Video)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJBBdoZVk9Q&eurl=http://nomorevictims.org/salee.php

[Orwellian_Ghost]

8. Kicking