Children of Malakand: Forgotten victim of a long war
While peace activist Malala Yousafzai is receiving continuous coverage after she was attacked, other youths that fell victim to similar attacks have not received the same attention.
Aurangzeb Khan from Lower Dir, a ninth grader at Jandool Model School, is currently in coma and has been occupying bed number 10 of the surgical trauma ward at the Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) for over a year now. The coma has reduced his body to bones and doctors at the hospital have given up hope, telling his family to just take him home.
Aurangzeb was severely wounded in a suicide attack on a funeral gathering in the Samar Bagh tehsil of Lower Dir on September 12, 2011. He sustained severe head injuries in the attack, which also killed more than 45 people and left 60 more injured, including Khan.
“His skull was pierced by a ball bearing, which got lodged in his head,” Aurangzeb’s older brother, Anwar Khan, told The Express Tribune. He regained consciousness after 36 days, but fell back in coma after a month.
Anwar, a taxi driver by profession, had to sell his cab to be able to pay for his brother’s continued treatment. So far, he has spent Rs1.5 million on his brother’s care with the government only providing less than a tenth of that, Rs100,000, in monetary compensation. The amount the government gave was completely spent on treatment in the initial days following the blast.
Aurangzeb was taken home and resumed his normal life for a month. He use to go out with friends and Anwar walked him to his school. However, a month later complications developed when an abscess grew on his wound and he had to be readmitted to LRH. At the hospital, doctors had mixed opinions about what to do. “One suggested an operation and the other opposed it,” Anwar said. Now, doctors at LRH have told his family that Aurangzeb will not regain consciousness for the rest of his life.
Despite this, the family remains resilient about saving his life, running from pillar to post. However, they have so far been without any luck. “I reached out to many support schemes to help us – Benazir Income Support Programme, Pakistan Baitul Mal, the prime minister’s secretariat, the chief minister and representatives of his locality,” Anwar said, still hopeful that his brother would recover. “But my appeals have fallen on deaf ears.”
He said that he is unsure what will happen to Aurangzeb if they take him home in this condition, and asks the government to take pity on them and extend some help.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 14th, 2012.
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Not only is the state failing to provide security to the citizens and cracking down against barbaric suicide attacks with psycho ball bearings for massive massacre and destruction by the Taliban and like minded extremist militant terrorist groups, but failing to provide basic follow up healthcare for victims of terrorism. We are literally losing the future generation.
ET, when such facts are provided, why dont you provide the contact number of the affected people as someone migt wish to help/assist them. It is an agonizing fact in our media (all of them) that they never provide contact numbers of such deserving people, dont understand why. What is the use of publihsing such news if no one would be able to lebnd a helpful hand, what is the moral of the story, read and walk away????
One can only pray and pray and pray and pray for these kids. Ya'Allah - please ease their hardships.
He must be sent abroad along with Malala. And govt should announce a special supporting programe for all those who fell victim of terrorism.
Yes please, more focus on FATA and K-P. That area has been neglected for a very long time. It's part of our country, the people are Pakistani citizens. There should be emergency fund raising in all of Pakistan for our countrymen in FATA and K-P. They need our help.