Miracle baby winning fight for life

Only two hours old, Baby Raad fought for his life in an ambulance that screamed along a treacherous, bombed-out stretch of road out of the heart of southern Lebanon’s war zone.

His shock of black hair was matted with blood from his birth and his frail body was swaddled in a blanket when ambulance drivers brought the barely 1,3 kilogram infant from the village of Tibnin to the Najem hospital in the southern port city of Tyre. He was born two months prematurely.His mother had a Caesarian section at a smaller hospital in Tibnin, where she had fled from her home village.Tibnin has been swarmed with thousands of refugees from surrounding villages, escaping heavy Israeli bombardment in the area.Tyre is little better, having been repeatedly hit in Israeli strikes.A bombed-out car still sits near Najem hospital from a strike days before.But the hospital had far better facilities than Tibnin’s to take care of the new-born premie.For now – two weeks after his birth – Raad is effectively abandoned.He was rushed out of Tibnin, 20 kilometres southeast of Tyre, but his mother stayed, either too weak or too frightened to come in the ambulance, hospital worker Ali Jawad Najem said on Monday.She called the Tyre hospital once to ask about her child, but when a nurse asked when she would come for the baby, the mother hung up.Later, a man who said he was the baby’s uncle came to the hospital to check on him, but refused to take the infant.”I don’t know why she doesn’t want her baby or if she will come after the war to take him.We haven’t heard anything since that one telephone call,” nurse Nada Daeg said.The mother – identified as Reema Jawad Hameer on a form filled out by the Lebanese Red Cross workers who brought the baby – might be too afraid to hazard the roads or believes the baby is safer and better cared for in Tyre, staff said.Without a relative to claim him, Raad now has “five mothers and six fathers”, Daeg said of the nurses and doctors.”We love him very much.He is our family now.”Raad’s face was so small it seemed lost in the palm of Daeg’s hand as she held him.His tiny feet were blue.His long fingers clutched tight to Daeg’s fleshy finger, and he frowned as the people around him talked about his short life.He was born July 23, 11 days after the start of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas, and his life was a struggle from the beginning.His lungs were weak and his breathing laboured when ambulance drivers scooped him up and brought him to Tyre, said Najem.Then he developed jaundice, common among premature babies, and his tiny body took on a yellow tinge, the nurse said.But Raad is a fighter and is gaining strength, Daeg said.”It’s slow and he looks very small and weak but he is eating fine and everything is OK,” the nurse said.Many of the hospital workers have lived at the hospital since the outbreak of fighting, unable to return to neighbouring villages because the roads are cut.With no mother around to name him, one of the hospital doctors, Nidal Mahboob, picked a name – one that indicates the depth of support for the Hezbollah guerrillas here in southern Lebanon.In Arabic, Raad means “thunder” – and Mahboob said the name represents the sound of Hezbollah rockets being fired into Israel.Raad is also the name of one type of the hundreds of rockets the guerrillas have launched.Held gently in Daeg’s arms, Raad was silent, his eyes wide, as she said, “We want him to be like the Hezbollah rockets when he grows into a young man – a fighter against Israel.”Nampa-APHe was born two months prematurely. His mother had a Caesarian section at a smaller hospital in Tibnin, where she had fled from her home village.Tibnin has been swarmed with thousands of refugees from surrounding villages, escaping heavy Israeli bombardment in the area.Tyre is little better, having been repeatedly hit in Israeli strikes.A bombed-out car still sits near Najem hospital from a strike days before.But the hospital had far better facilities than Tibnin’s to take care of the new-born premie.For now – two weeks after his birth – Raad is effectively abandoned.He was rushed out of Tibnin, 20 kilometres southeast of Tyre, but his mother stayed, either too weak or too frightened to come in the ambulance, hospital worker Ali Jawad Najem said on Monday.She called the Tyre hospital once to ask about her child, but when a nurse asked when she would come for the baby, the mother hung up.Later, a man who said he was the baby’s uncle came to the hospital to check on him, but refused to take the infant.”I don’t know why she doesn’t want her baby or if she will come after the war to take him.We haven’t heard anything since that one telephone call,” nurse Nada Daeg said.The mother – identified as Reema Jawad Hameer on a form filled out by the Lebanese Red Cross workers who brought the baby – might be too afraid to hazard the roads or believes the baby is safer and better cared for in Tyre, staff said.Without a relative to claim him, Raad now has “five mothers and six fathers”, Daeg said of the nurses and doctors.”We love him very much.He is our family now.”Raad’s face was so small it seemed lost in the palm of Daeg’s hand as she held him.His tiny feet were blue.His long fingers clutched tight to Daeg’s fleshy finger, and he frowned as the people around him talked about his short life.He was born July 23, 11 days after the start of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas, and his life was a struggle from the beginning.His lungs were weak and his breathing laboured when ambulance drivers scooped him up and brought him to Tyre, said Najem.Then he developed jaundice, common among premature babies, and his tiny body took on a yellow tinge, the nurse said.But Raad is a fighter and is gaining strength, Daeg said.”It’s slow and he looks very small and weak but he is eating fine and everything is OK,” the nurse said.Many of the hospital workers have lived at the hospital since the outbreak of fighting, unable to return to neighbouring villages because the roads are cut.With no mother around to name him, one of the hospital doctors, Nidal Mahboob, picked a name – one that indicates the depth of support for the Hezbollah guerrillas here in southern Lebanon.In Arabic, Raad means “thunder” – and Mahboob said the name represents the sound of Hezbollah rockets being fired into Israel.Raad is also the name of one type of the hundreds of rockets the guerrillas have launched.Held gently in Daeg’s arms, Raad was silent, his eyes wide, as she said, “We want him to be like the Hezbollah rockets when he grows into a young man – a fighter against Israel.”Nampa-AP