Ali Ismail Abbas

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Ali Ismail Abbas (born 1991 ) is a British citizen of Iraqi origin. In 2003 he was reported around the world after photos by photojournalists Yuri Kozyrev and Faleh Kheiber made the then twelve-year-old internationally known. He suffered serious injuries in the Iraq war . In the course of the war, the images became symbolic images for the war.

Life

Ali Ismail Abbas grew up with his sister Hedel and his brother Abbas up to the age of twelve as the son of a small farmer in a village northeast of Baghdad . In March 2003, twelve days after the start of the Iraq war, two misdirected missiles in the Diyala governorate inflicted severe burns and injuries to his arm and killed his parents, brother and over a dozen other family members. Abbas himself was immediately rescued from the rubble by a neighbor, but he arrived at the emergency room of the Rusafa Hospital in Baghdad in barely viable physical condition.

The treating doctor and clinic director Mowafak Gorea appealed through the international press to the global community to evacuate Ali Ismail Abbas so that he could receive medical care elsewhere. Gorea's call for international help was emotionally reinforced by the direct TV images of Abbas and his quotes at the bedside: “Do you want to free us, but why are you killing us? Where will all this pain go? ”Said the boy in Arabic for example to the English-speaking team at AP.

The international rescue operation that followed was initiated and implemented in particular by the British charity Limbless Association, including through a donation-financed fund for Abbas. This fund enabled the child, among other things, to attend a three-year private school at the Hall School in London from the beginning of 2003 and covered large parts of his medical and living expenses until 2016. After that, Abbas felt pressured to be more independent in his housekeeping as well as with regard to his integration through training and work, because, despite his British naturalization in 2010, his residence status in Great Britain might otherwise have expired.

In the summer of 2014, Abbas looked back critically on the US-led offensive of 2003 in an interview with the British TV broadcaster Channel 5 News and took both Great Britain and the US to be jointly responsible for the ongoing unrest in Iraq .

Abbas is married for the second time. In spring 2018, he and his wife Zainab became parents of a son.

The war event in the reporting

“We slept around midnight,” said Abbas in 2003 of the shock-and- awe air attack on his parents' small farm. “American planes came and threw rockets. We lived in a small village that consisted of only four houses, all of which were destroyed. 16 members of my family were killed. "

A taxi driver from the neighborhood had rescued Abbas from the partly still burning rubble. Then the boy was brought to Baghdad with 60% burned body area, where emergency medical care was provided, as well as by arm amputations on both sides, and soon afterwards he was interviewed by the Reuters news agency Samoa Nakhoul, who was responsible for the Gulf region . “Can you help me get my arms back? Do you think the doctors can give me a new pair of hands? ”He asked her. "If I don't get new hands, I'll commit suicide."

Five-part altar Trauma by Yolanda Feindura (2003)

While still in Baghdad, war photographers Yuri Kozyrev from Time Magazine and Faleh Kheiber from Reuters news agency took serial photos of the twelve-year-old. After their publication, some of them achieved an iconographic effect on the one hand, and on the other hand they were subsequently included in the media-critical discussion about the deployment of so-called embedded journalists . For example, in retrospect, journalist Jon Lee Anderson recalled that Abbas's “face was like an old Italian Renaissance painting. He had biblical composure. ”To this, the reporter Bob Simon added with hindsight:“ Ali Abbas never asked to be the hero in an inspiring story. That's just how it happened. ”Abbas himself expressed early on, sometimes critical of the behavior that reporters showed him. In 2003, while he was still in the hospital in Baghdad, he told the British Telegraph's reporting team : “The journalists always promised to evacuate me. Why don't you do it now? "

As a result, the worldwide media coverage also led to artistic engagement with Abbas' biography. This includes the five-part altar Trauma by the Bremen painter Yolanda Feindura from 2003.

Medical rehabilitation in the UK

After an offer of treatment from Kuwait , Abbas, accompanied by his uncle Mohammed al-Sultani, was brought to a center for burn injuries and plastic surgery in Kuwait City by US Marines for life-sustaining treatment and about two weeks later with the help of the Limbless Association and after promises of aid from the British at the time Prime Minister Tony Blair transported to Great Britain in the jet of then Kuwaiti Prime Minister Saad Al-Salim Al-Sabah. There he was fitted with prosthetic arms at the Queen Mary Hospital in London.

Due to the high level of coverage, in 2003 the Limbless Association received donations of around 250,000 US dollars for Ali Ismail Abbas within a short period of time.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mailonline reporter: 'In my darkest moments I could never have imagined that I would become a father one day'. In: dailymail.co.uk. Daily Mail online, March 3, 2018, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  2. ↑ a b Bob Simon: How Ali beat the odds. In: CBS News. CBS, May 11, 2007, accessed March 15, 2020 .
  3. ^ Gerhard Paul: Image disturbances . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen 2005, ISBN 3-89244-980-5 , p. 147 .
  4. ^ Ali Ismail Abbas. In: en.wikipedia.org. Wikipedia, January 3, 2020, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  5. ↑ Steven Grandison: Ali Abbas back to Baghdad. In: YouTube. BBC One, November 27, 2015, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  6. ^ Stefan Aust, Cordt Schnibben, Klaus Brinkbäumber: Iraq: History of a modern war . Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Munich 2003, ISBN 3-421-05804-0 , pp. 395 .
  7. ↑ Steffen Gassel: This boy stirs the world. In: stern.de. stern, December 16, 2003, accessed March 15, 2020 .
  8. ^ Bob Meadows, Juliet Butler: Ali gets better. In: People.com. People, November 10, 2003, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  9. ↑ a b AP reporting team: GWT: VOICED Interview with boy who lost both arms and family in bombing. In: YouTube. AP Archive, July 21, 2015, accessed March 17, 2020 .
  10. ↑ Channel 5 News Reporter: Exclusive: Ali Abbas blames Britain and the US for troubles in Iraq. In: YouTube. 5 News, June 23, 2014, accessed on March 18, 2020 .
  11. ↑ MailOnline Reporter: 'In my darkest moments I could never have imagined that I would become a father one day'. In: dailymail.co.uk. Daily Mail, March 3, 2018, accessed March 17, 2020 .
  12. ↑ Latest on Iraqi boy who lost both arms in conflict. In: YouTube. AP Archive, July 21, 2015, accessed March 15, 2020 .
  13. ↑ Sharon Hendry: If people ask 'how will you hug your wife?' I tell them it doesn't matter ... In: thesun.co.uk. The Sun, September 15, 2012, accessed March 15, 2020 .
  14. ^ Sarah Hall: Boy injured by bomb to get treatment in London. In: theguardian.com. The Guardian, April 11, 2003, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  15. ↑ Young Iraqi was victim flown to Kuwait. In: YouTube. AP Archive, July 21, 2015, accessed March 15, 2020 .
  16. ↑ Markus Becker: Ali, the face of war. In: Spiegel.de. Spiegel, April 10, 2003, accessed March 15, 2020 .
  17. ↑ David Friend: A War Waged in Images . Ed .: American Photo. tape 14 , no. 5 . Bonnier Corporation, September 2003, ISSN  1046-8986 , p. 44 .
  18. ↑ The Aftermath of 9/11: Ali Abbas by Yuri Kozyrev. In: time.com. Time Magazine, September 12, 2011, accessed March 15, 2020 .
  19. ↑ Gerhard Paul: The War of Images: Staging, Images and Perspectives of the "Operation Iraqi Freedom" . Wallstein Verlag, Göttingen November 1, 2016, p. 117 .
  20. ↑ To smithereens and back. In: smh.com.au. Sydney Morning Herald, September 18, 2003, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  21. ^ Ron Claiborne: Reporter's Notebook: Ali Ismail Abbas, Iraqi Boy Hit by American Missile 10 Years Later. https://abcnews.go.com , December 28, 2020, accessed March 15, 2020 (English).
  22. ↑ Ron Synovitz: Icons Of The Iraq War: Ali Ismail Abbas And The Civilian Toll. In: rferl.org/. RadioFreeEurope / RadioLiberty, March 17, 2013, accessed on March 16, 2020 .
  23. ↑ Florian Rötzer: Politics of Images. In: heise.de. Telepolis, April 15, 2003, accessed March 15, 2020 .
  24. ↑ Ali's flight into new life. In: Spiegel.de. Spiegel, April 16, 2003, accessed March 15, 2020 .
  25. ^ Help arrives at last last for Ali. In: theage.com. theage.com, April 17, 2003, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  26. ^ Avril Stephens: Injured boy Ali lands in Kuwait. In: CNN.com. CNN, April 16, 2003, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  27. ↑ Andrea Catherwood: Ten years on: Iconic Iraq war victim tells ITV News the war wasn't right. In: itv.com. itv.com, March 18, 2013, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  28. ^ Marie Woolf: Blair promises to help the boy who lost his arms in Baghdad air strike. In: independent.co.uk/. The Independent, April 15, 2003, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  29. ^ Nicola Woolcock: Bomb victim Ali comes to Britain for his new arms. In: telegraph.co.uk. The Telegraph, August 8, 2003, accessed March 16, 2020 .
  30. ↑ Amani Al Hajery, Rasha Al Mahroos: A Casualty of War. In: bahrainmedicalbulletin.com. Bahrain Medical Bulletin, June 2003, accessed March 16, 2020 .
personal data
SURNAME Abbas, Ali Ismail
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Iraqi-British war victims (Iraq war)
DATE OF BIRTH 1991