BASIRA JAN’S heart condition was so severe that her face turned blue after walking just a few yards.

The six-year-old girl, who comes from a remote Afghan village without electricity or running water, would undoubtedly have died had she not been taken in hand by US National Guardsmen and sent to America for emergency surgery at one of the world’s best paediatric hospitals. It was an operation that cost 100 times her father’s annual earnings from his job clearing landmines.

Basira’s is a rare uplifting story amid the unrelenting news of death and destruction that emanates from her country and Iraq, but she is not alone.

She is one of eight critically ill children who have been plucked from the chaos of those conflicts for life-saving heart treatment half way around the world.

US Rotarians behind the Gift of Life project believe that it is worth the enormous logistical, bureaucratic and fundraising effort to bring the children out.

Rob Donno, the project’s chairman, said: “We’re trying to bring people together through one common denominator that we all have, and that’s our children.”

His group is preparing to repatriate Basira to her Afghan village this week, and to bring out six more critically ill children from Iraq for surgery in New York.

“The impact is more than just a physical thing,” Mr Donno said. The scar is on their chest as a constant reminder of what someone did without even knowing them. When they go back to their homes, people are obviously very grateful.

“You could have a war for centuries between people but if you save my child’s life, you could never be enemies again. That is the best ambassador that you can have. The mission of the Gift of Life is to promote world peace.”

Basira was brought to US Camp Phoenix in Afghanistan by her desperate father, Ghulam Ghaus, because the slightest exertion exhausted her.

Captain Steve Fippen, of the Indiana 151st Infantry Battalion, said: “She was extremely fatigued and weak. She weighed all of 31lb and as she walked her face turned blue because of the lack of oxygen in her bloodstream.”

National Guardsmen tend to be older than regular US troops and have stronger links to their home communities. Some are Rotarians. Captain Fippen helped to organise Basira’s odyssey through Rotary contacts at the Riley Hospital for Children in his native Indianapolis.

Not all these cases have happy endings. Qudrat Ullah Wardak, who was just 16 months old, died two days after returning to Afghanistan in April apparently cured of his heart problems at Riley.

Others such as Ali Ayad, 9, and Abdul Jabur Raid Jabar, 8, both from Iraq, have been treated for heart problems in the US in recent months. However they, like Basira, will also face risks when they return home.

Basira’s family “live in extreme poverty and insanitary conditions near the Pakistan border. It is a poor Afghan village and they live in a mud home with no electricity and minimal fresh water,” Captain Frippen said.

He admits that attempts to keep her in the US were frustrated by red tape. “Several people were interested in adopting her, but it was not possible because after 9/11 it is very hard to bring an Afghan person to live in the US,” he said.

But, he adds: “That she has survived this long indicates that she has got enough immunity in her system to fight any infections and is capable of making the flights back.

“We have tried to make sure there is going to be a little better future for her in Afghanistan. There have been donations for the family so that Mr Ghaus can give them a better life. He has another daughter who is 17 and paralysed after she fell from a building and broke her back.”

Rhett Stuard, chairman of Gift of Life in Indiana, said: “Of course we hope that Basira stays well.” But of Qudrat Ullah Wardak’s death he says: “I don’t know that I am going to call last time a failure.

“We took this kid half way around the world to fix him and he lived a wonderful life while he was here and raised enough money for us to be able to treat two or three more children. He gave some other kids a great gift.”

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