Ten years after a life-saving medical trip to Portland, an Iraqi boy has returned for further treatment.
After a journey of about 40 hours that included canceled and delayed flights and misplaced luggage, an exhausted Mustafa Abed, now 15, and his mother, Nidhal Aswad, didn't speak with reporters when their flight landed Tuesday at almost 2 a.m.
On hand for the arrival was Geri Berg, a pediatric social worker who assisted Mustafa during his first visit. Also present to greet Mustafa and his mother were Maxine Fookson and Ned Rosch, founders of the Portland chapter of No More Victims, a nonprofit that brings children wounded by war to the United States for treatment.
They led the initial effort to bring then 5-year-old Mustafa to Oregon. Fookson got some of the warmest smiles from an obviously fatigued Mustafa.
Berg said Tuesday afternoon that while it's "really early" to assess Mustafa's condition, she saw "a strong teenage boy."
"Clearly, he's a survivor," she said. "I thought he looked terrific. He's not always been that way for the last few years so we were really happy to see it."
Berg said she and Aswad bonded as mothers who "know what it means to protect our kids."
"Nidhal learned 'I love you' and she said it over and over again when we were leaving," Berg said.
Mustafa was 2 when he was badly injured in a 2004 U.S. missile strike near Fallujah.
His leg was severed near the hip, and his internal injuries required treatment beyond what could be provided in his hometown.
In 2008, he and his father came to Portland, where he had kidney and bowel surgery and received an artificial leg.
At the time, the plan was for Mustafa to return every few years for a new prosthesis and continuing care. But cell phone and internet service were spotty in their village, and by early 2010, his Portland supporters lost contact with the family.
When the Islamic State took over the region in 2014, the Portlanders feared the worst.
"We never thought we would see him again," Fookson said. "It was really painful to lose contact for all those years."
Then, in 2016, they spotted the boy on public television.
Mustafa was featured toward the end of a PBS Newshour segment on a refugee camp outside Fallujah, Iraq. His friends in Portland recognized the now 13-year-old boy walking with crutches on one leg. They reached out to the piece's reporter, Jane Arraf.
"She made it all possible," Fookson said. "I think by that night we were on the phone with them through one of our local interpreters."
Since then, Fookson and Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility have raised funds to send medical supplies like catheters and colostomy bags to Mustafa in Iraq.
They've stayed in touch, learning through Arabic interpreters how Mustafa and his family have fared during the political turmoil in their country.
"We've been able to talk to him a couple of times. Life has been very, very difficult for the family," Fookson said.
During the siege of Fallujah, "there was very little food. One of the things we heard from the family was they just ate flour, because that's all they had, raw flour."
The effort to obtain visas to bring Mustafa back to Portland began about five or six months ago, Fookson said.
The nonprofit Palestine Children's Relief Fund paid for Mustafa and Nidhal's trip.
They'll stay for an estimated three months at a Ronald McDonald House while Mustafa receives treatment. Many of the doctors who saw Mustafa 10 years ago are donating their services to work with him again at Doernbecher Children's Hospital and the Shiners Hospital for Children.
"I am very excited to see him, I am also aware ... how really, really difficult his life has been," Fookson said the evening before Mustafa's arrival. "What he's been through in 10 years is so much war, poverty, hunger, refugee status, pain, more kidney infections, his own disability that limits him a country where so few services exist. There's just so many obstacles that he's had to face."
Fookson said Mustafa has told her he wants to continue his schooling and become a doctor.
"He said to me on the phone, 'I have so many things I've had to go to the doctor for, I'd like to be able to help somebody else,' " she said.
by Samantha Swindler
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