I fled a warzone on donkey to fight another deadly enemy.. superbugs
A scientist who helped create a drug that could save thousands of lives has told how it was only possible because he risked his own.
Dr Abedawn Khalaf fled his home country of Iraq after his wife and children left to return to Scotland and authorities refused him permission to leave with them. He embarked on a dangerous journey, which involved paying thousands of pounds to smugglers and travelling on the backs of donkeys.
It also meant going through Iran as an Iraqi national at the height of the war between the two countries in the early 80s.
The perilous six-month journey meant he could dedicate his life to medical research in the west. He has since developed antibiotics which will fight superbugs such as
MRSA and C. difficile.
Abed, as he is known, has now retired from his post at Strathclyde University, where he worked for 29 years. And he feels it’s time to tell his incredible story in his book, The Fugitive Chemist. Abed lives in Glasgow with wife Carol, 64, a medical secretary who he met in a nightclub while he was studying chemistry at Dundee University in the 70s.
Their wedding was postponed a couple of times because Abed was a reserve in the Iraqi army and was called back for training and to serve on the frontline.
But he was able to return to Carol and continue his studies. The couple have two children, Layla, 37, and Ramsay, 36, who are both pharmacists.
Abed said: “After I got my degree and got married, I couldn’t get a job.”
The family struggled to survive on Carol’s part-time wage in a factory so they decided they would move to Iraq in 1983.
He said: “It was a total culture shock for Carol and she couldn’t adjust to the way of life. Iraq was at war with Iran and I still
RESEARCH Abed working at university The area was being bombed every day
couldn’t work in chemistry. I had to go back to the army and the frontline.
“My wife and children stayed with my brother and they gave us one room to live in. Carol had to cover herself from top to toe. It was very strict there and still is.”
Abed eventually landed a job as a university lecturer in a Kurdish region in the north of Iraq.
But he said: “There were different problems there as the Kurdish people were fighting among themselves and the Iranians were bombarding the region every day. We could have died many times.”
Carol decided to leave Iraq in July 1988 to return to Scotland with the children. Abed was told, as a lecturer, he could not leave. Officials even tried to stop Ramsay, then five, from leaving as, they argued, he was an Iraqi.
But Carol and the children got out. Abed then decided to f lee too. A Kurdish h student offered to help smuggle e him to neighbouring Iran on a treacherous journey on the back of donkeys over mountains.
He said: “I had to pay thousands of pounds to the smugglers. It was frightening because Iraq was at war with Iran – and I had been an officer in the Iraqi army reserves.
“I didn’t know the smugglers and they could ld have killed for money. I had sold my car and was carrying thousands of pounds.
“We would travel at night and sleep during the day – in a bush or the forest or on top of the mountain. It was freezing.”
He made it into Iran with no visa and an expired passport with a forged extension but discovered the only country he could travel to was Syria. But when he flew into Damascus, his passport was taken and he says intelligence officers wanted him to spy on Syrian people in London.
Abed said: “It was awful. I couldn’t say nono. I said ‘Okay’ so I could get my passport back. They said someone would contact me. But, as soon as I got my passport, I managed to leave andd I never heard from them again.
“By then, my wife had contacted MPs. She told me to get to the Cypriot embassy in Damascus. I bribed a guard and managed to get the forms to apply for a visa to Cyprus.”
In Cyprus, he met the British ambassador, who granted him a visa to travel to the UK.
When he arrived at Heathrow, he was interrogated at immigration before an officer eventually contacted his wife. He said: “I got the next flight to Edinburgh.”
The family were finally reunited. In 1989, he got a job at Strathclyde University in medical research and he worked there for 29 years until his retirement two years ago.
Abed said: “I helped create antibiotics with two professors. They’re now in the final stage of clinical trials for treatment of MRSA and C. diff. Hopefully, by early next year, they will become available.”
Abed believes his work is his thank you to the country he calls home. He added: “I hope it will save many lives.”