10 years later, life still in danger
AFGHAN BOY who received heart surgery in Canada now faces threats from Taliban
With the benefit of hindsight, Djamshid Popal — the fragile Afghan child whose life-saving heart procedure in 2004 made headlines across Canada — wishes he had never left the strange country that saved his life.
Ten years removed from being flown overseas and landing in Canada on July 2, 2004, then going to hospitals in Ottawa and Toronto, the now 19-year-old Popal suffers constant nosebleeds and struggles to get an education in his dusty village near Kabul.
More concerning, his family routinely receives death threats f rom suspicious Taliban supporters, all because the boy benefited from Canadian compassion and medical expertise.
Canadian Forces doctors came upon Popal’s desperate plight while conducting a medical clinic in Mohla Mahmad Khail, a bumpy threeand-a-half hour ride northeast of the Afghan capital.
Popal, 9 at the time, was frail and having difficulty breathing, recalled Maj. Americo Rodrigues, the army doctor from Toronto who initially treated him.
“He was 9 years old, but he looked like he was 6,” Rodrigues said. “He was very frail, he was very short of breath, he looked very sick.”
At first it was believed the boy had a condition known as patent ductus arteriosus, a birth defect where blood from the left side of the heart circulates back to the right side without taking its normal course through the body.
But after being diagnosed at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario in Ottawa, doctors said it appeared that three of the boy’s four heart valves had been damaged during a severe bout of rheumatic fever.
He was later transferred to Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children, where he underwent surgery to repair his heart.
Once he started to recover, Popal became extremely homesick for his mother, Sohaila, and other family members.
Despite efforts to keep him in Canada by supporters like Saddique Khan of Hamilton, Ont., who financed his original journey, Djamshid was determined to go home, and his father, Shafiullah, respected his wishes.
The two flew back to Af- ghanistan in November 2004.
Since then they have lived reclusively in their small, mud brick home on land dotted by landmines.
Looking back, Popal said he believes life would have been better had he remained in Canada.
“But I really didn’t know that if I had chosen to stay in Canada, my mom could have also visited me.”
The slightly built Popal now breathes more easily, but his movements are laboured, and he is plagued by nosebleeds brought on by warfarin, the blood-thinning medication he takes to stay alive.
Six years ago, he suffered a stroke and never fully recovered. Then, two months ago, Popal’s foot was broken when he was run over by a car.
All of that may be the least of his problems.
Taliban supporters in his village have made threats against Popal’s father, forcing him to find work breaking rocks to sell from the mountains around their village.
“They think we are the spies of the Canadian government,” Popal said in an interview with a translator in Kabul.
As he did a decade ago, Popal still dreams of becoming a doctor, although he said his health is making it hard to complete high school.
“I can’t go to school regularly because its almost two hours’ walk up and down the hills,” he said.