Nooria is a beautiful eighteen year old girl who lives with her grandmother in one of the many refugee camps near Peshawar, Pakistan. Like thousands of girls her age, she has suffered the grief of her father's death, has a ruined life, and has always lived in insecurity and poverty. She has also lived away from her family (her mother and two younger brothers live in Jalalabad, her elder brother in Kabul while she and her sister live in the camp). Due to these misfortunes she hasn't been able to endure the hardships of life and on the evening of May 9th, 2004 she decided to hang herself with her scarf in an attempt to commit suicide. Within minutes of hanging herself, her sisters and residents of the camp noticed her body and immediately informed the medical personnel of RAWA based in the camp. RAWA was able to restore her heartbeat and quickly transported her to the nearest hospital in Peshawar.
After a thorough medical evaluation, tests and eight days of hospitalization, her doctors came to the conclusion that there was only a five percent chance of her recovery back to normal and said, "There is nothing more we can do." RAWA did not give up on their efforts to rescue her and transported her unconscious body to a better facility in Islamabad. The doctors in the Islamabad hospital, after going through her medical history, accepted the conclusion reached by the doctors in Peshawar, and discharged her from the hospital. Their final opinion was that if good care and better facilities are provided to her at home, there might be a possibility that she would live a normal life. She was then taken to Malalai Hospital. After fifty four days under the care of Malalai Hospital doctors Nooria awoke from her coma. Though initially she had uncontrollable fits and convulsions, by August she was out of that condition, but still required serious care. According to one of the Malalai Hospital nurses, "She has been provided with all the facilities that she needed and, is among the most serious ill and costly patients to treat in the hospital's history."
As of August Nooria is able to walk with assistance, to express herself in sign language, to cry spontaneously and to stare blankly at things around her. She is mute and has a permanent smile on her lips. Her limbs still shake vigorously. She is weak and still has neuropsychiatric symptoms indicating partial brain functionality. Her mother with tears in her eyes said, "From the moment my daughter hung herself, I considered her dead. Thanks to RAWA for their extraordinary efforts and expenses which gave a new life to my daughter. We are a poor family, having been broken up into different corners of Afghanistan in order to earn a living. Therefore we could have never afforded Nooria's huge medical expenses nor could we have borrowed money from someone. It was only RAWA who helped us. The facilities provided to us in this hospital are extraordinary and beyond our imagination. Personally I and my family are ready to offer any kind of help to RAWA. Ask any patient in this hospital, you will hear the same thing, 'You are doing a great job.' I am not the only one praising RAWA."
Norria's elder sister, who was with her since the incident said, "Believe me I have no words to express my feelings about the kindness, efforts and sympathy of the hospital personnel. They were the only ones who brought back Nooria's soul. They left us speechless."
One of Nooria's relatives who came from Afghanistan to visit her said, "I have heard a lot about RAWA but have never met one of them. Like their ideology, their actions are altogether different from others. They work for humanity and not to show off. For them, at this moment, what is important is Nooria's life and nothing else."
Nooria is under intense care and treatment and she will need proper medical care for an unknown time period entirely dependant upon how she recovers. Committing suicide is very common especially among Afghan women. Lots of people lose their lives every year. The main reasons for this are due to poverty, insecurity, and a bad political and economical situation, and above all the role of fundamentalists which has a direct effect upon the status of women in our society. Nooria is one of the helpless victims who could not endure these endemic problems. She was previously one of the breadwinners of her family a year ago. She worked in the camp and was very much aware of the miseries of life as a refugee and as a woman in fundamentalist blighted Afghanistan. She was quoted by her friends as saying, "How much more are we going to suffer?"
Aug. 31, 2004 update: She is much better but the affects of the suicide attempt still can be seen. She can only speak in a very very low voice. She can't walk
like before and someone has to escort her. She visits her doctor every
week and takes her prescribed medication. Fortunately, she is progressing every day and
while a few weeks ago she was unable to speak a word, she now speaks a bit (but
only her mother knows what she says). Mentally she seems okay and her appreciation for life is much greater than before her suicide attempt. RAWA pays
for all her medicines and other treatment.
