Buthaina, back in Baghdad, needs help
When Cindy Sheehan (co-founder of the antiwar group Gold Star Families for Peace and mother of slain US soldier Casey Sheehan, for whom “Camp Casey” in Crawford, Texas, was named) visited Buthaina with DAI team members last summer, she wrote an appeal for funds that was able to help significantly with meeting Buthaina’s needs. After months in Amman, Buthaina had improved enough to be able to recently return to Iraq - a good thing, because funds her family had raised for her care had also been exhausted.
Our friend Buthaina continues to need our help, as her journey of healing continues.
In DAI’s work, we’ve found that often our relationships with aid recipients continue to lead us in new directions in our work. One example is the case of Muna, whose strength and struggle began our work more than a year ago. Muna was resettled to California, and DAI team members continue to support her there. Buthaina’s is another such case.
Our friend Buthaina’s life was forever changed when a mortar struck her house in her Baghdad neighborhood. The explosion killed three other women in her family, and left her catastrophically wounded, missing a limb, and with a 30 cm. wound in her abdomen that continued to threaten her life for months after the attack. Some of our early supporters may remember our appeals supporting Buthaina when she was in intensive care in a hospital in Amman last summer.
DAI was able to help Buthaina with several of her medical bills last year when she had been evacuated to Jordan for emergency surgery. We have maintained contact with her family, and know that the area where she is living is, for the moment, safe enough for her to receive the treatment she needs inside Iraq.
Buthaina is now back at home with her husband, from whom she was separated during her time outside Iraq - her husband was denied security clearance to enter Jordan because he is a male Iraqi. She is through the most dangerous time in her recovery, but she still has a long way to go.
Our friend Buthaina urgently needs a surgery to help repair the tendons in her right arm and hand, to allow her to use this limb again. The costs for this surgery are estimated at $1000 US dollars.
Click here to help us continue to support Buthaina and other Iraqis who have been injured or deprived of urgently-needed medical care by the ongoing crises in their country.
