Some scars sear themselves into the psyche of a young mind and cannot be healed even after a lifetime of happy moments.
“Fire! Fire! Fire!” Scared to death by a real-life nightmare that haunts him, little Safir would wake up screaming in the middle of virtually every other night.
The three-year-old boy suffered 17% burns when the bus he was travelling in along with his parents was firebombed by pickets in Narayanganj on January 18, when the BNP had been enforcing a non-stop blockade.
The fire, that burnt the little boy’s face, legs and hands, has literally robbed him of his childhood. He has problems in moving freely and so he cannot even play with his toys, let alone playing any other game that involves running and jumping, and stuff that healthy kids do.
The on-skin scars may give way someday, but his parents – even though both are doctors – have no idea whether their only son will ever be mentally normal again.
“Safir absolutely loved to take rides in my car. Before that night, he would stay in the car as long as he could. But now, he does not even want to see the car,” said Dr Saiful Islam, the father.
In that brutal petrol bomb attack, Saiful himself suffered 5% burns and his wife Dr Sharmin Islam suffered 38% burns.
The family underwent two weeks of treatment at a local private hospital at that time. After their physical conditions improved a little, they came back home but they left all their happiness back at the hospital.
“Apart from the physical injuries, Safir’s young mind has been totally traumtised by the fire. Even I get traumatised when I see my little boy writhing in pain. And he is going through all the suffering for who knows whose crime,” said Saiful while talking to the Dhaka Tribune yesterday.
Asked how he and his wife are doing now, the doctor said: “We do not feel our pain when we see our boy suffering like that. I cannot move my left hand freely but that does not bother me because I have lived my life. But our little boy has started his life and already he is having to feel such unsurmountable pain.”
Shedding tears silently, the father said: “We had plastic surgery done on parts of one of his legs and the hands. But that did not take the pain away. The pain will be there for a while. This happens with burn injuries.”
Asked how long Safir would have to undergo treatment, Saiful said: “It breaks my heart to say this but my boy may have to carry the pain throughout his life because the fire damaged tissues in his hands and one of the legs. Even after he grows up, they will never work the same.”
Saiful said they give him massage therapy at home to make him feel better and take him to the Mohammadpur City Hospital once every month.
The only thing that the helpless parents can ask for now is prayers for their son.
