The Story of Baby Bayan Jassem:
How the struggle for this Iraqi baby's life opened unprecedented doors in the volatile Middle East

"As we say in Hebrew, to save one soul is to save the whole world," said the surgeon Sasson as he stood by Bayan's bedside in the ICU after surgery.

In what may be a groundbreaking development in relations between the two countries, an Iraqi baby girl with a deadly heart defect was rushed to Israel in late November for emergency heart surgery.

Bayan Jassem's heart defect was detected on her second day of life in a
hospital in Kirkuk in northern Iraq, by an American army doctor using a
sonar device borrowed from an army field surgical unit. Volunteers
from the Jerusalem-based Christian group Shevet Achim were visiting the
hospital and witnessed her examination by Lt. Col. John Scott, who told
them that Bayan's only hope for a normal life was to have open-heart
surgery within her first two weeks of life.

"We hadn't even dreamed of yet being able to take an emergency case
from Iraq into Israel," said Jonathan Miles, coordinator of Shevet
Achim. "But we knew of no other hospital that would accept this
complex case on short notice. Somehow God gave us faith not to pass by
this child."

The Shevet Achim volunteers went with Bayan's family to their home and
explained to a gathering of her clan the possibility of treatment in
Israel. The family, from a Kurdish Muslim background, raised no
objections to traveling to the Jewish state, despite the long history
of enmity between Iraq and Israel.

Doctors from the Save a Child's Heart program at the Wolfson Medical
Center in Israel agreed to accept Bayan for surgery, but warned that
before traveling she must be stabilized by an emergency catheterization
procedure to open a route for oxygen to enter her bloodstream. Doctors
in Baghdad were hesitant to perform the procedure on such a small
child. "We connected the two by telephone and watched in amazement as
the Iraqi cardiologist spoke cordially with Israeli cardiologist Akiva
Tamir about how best to save this child's life," said Miles.

"I hope what we do is a little drop of saneness," said Tamir, "and it
will really help to create some more normal relationship with this
people, who probably out of ignorance--they don't know us--they build a
picture of monsters about the Jewish people and the Israelis."

A medical evacuation flight brought Bayan as far as Amman, Jordan,
where the Israeli embassy was specially opened on a holiday to issue
the family with urgent visas to Israel. "Maybe it will be sort of a
bridge to overcome the huge gap we have nowadays," said Daniel Nevo,
deputy chief of mission at the embassy. "Hopefully they will have
their own sovereign independent state in the future [in Iraq], and
hopefully we will have at least a relationship as we have here with the
Jordanians, even more. It can happen. We have a lot to contribute to
each other."

The day after arriving in Tel Aviv, Bayan was rushed into surgery at
the hands of Dr. Lior Sasson, an Israeli whose own parents were Jews
who immigrated to Israel from Iraq. The repair of Bayan's condition,
transposition of the great arteries, was completed successfully, but
when coming off the heart bypass machine in a rare complication her
lungs suddenly filled with blood. "We watched as the medical team
worked on Bayan in the operating room all through the night," said
Miles, "and only after 21 hours on the operating room table was she
stable enough for transfer to the ICU."

"As we say in Hebrew, to save one soul is to save the whole world,"
said the surgeon Sasson as he stood by Bayan's bedside in the ICU after
surgery. "So it surely is worth it. We'll make all the efforts that
are required, if it takes 24, 48, 72 hours, even a week. We will
simply be around the clock until--we won't surrender."

For three more weeks doctors in Israel did fight for Bayan's life in
the ICU, as Christians around the world prayed. On the day she turned
one month of age, Bayan died in the hospital. By the next evening her
parents had returned to northern Iraq, where volunteers accompanying
the family reported that the whole village turned out to greet the
family. "The family gave them a very positive testimony," reported Tim
N., one of the volunteers, "of how well they were treated by Christians
and Jews."

The meaning of Bayan's name in Kurdish is "dawn," and in what they're
calling Operation "Dawn for Iraq" Shevet Achim volunteers now hope to
strengthen the bridge between Iraq and Israel in 2004 by bringing
dozens more Iraqi children who need surgery into Israel and to other
heart centers around the world.

Media Coverage of Bayan

4 Nov. 2003 Interview with Pat Robertson on the 700 Club.

25 Nov. 2003 "Iraqi infant to be treated in Israel," Jerusalem Post.

26 Nov. 2003 "Iraqi baby arrives in Israel for medical treatment," Haaretz.

27 Nov. 2003 "Saving Baby Bayan," NBC News.

27 Nov. 2003 "A Tiny Symbol of Change for Iraq," LA Times.

5 Dec. 2003 "Israeli Doctors Save Iraqi Child," CBN.

5 Dec. 2003 "Baby's plight bridges abyss," Chicago Tribune.

13 Dec. 2003 "Group brings Iraqi baby to Israel for surgery," 9NewsNBC Denver.

Shevet Achim's Newsletters about Bayan

29 January 2004 It is quite humbling to see how the Lord can use you when you go on a journey in the name of Jesus. I don't speak Arabic so I was traveling with Jonathan to observe and to learn how things are done in Iraq. Our first night in the home of baby Bayan's parents will long be remembered.

5 January 2004 On the evening that Bayan's parents returned to their home in Iraq, I spoke with the father by telephone. His first words were "When are you coming?"

18 December 2003 Bayan's parents have arrived safely back in their village in the north of Iraq, with Bayan's body. I've just gotten off the phone with the nurse who is traveling with them. She said, "You wouldn't believe what ambassadors they are for Israel.

17 December 2003 Bayan's heart went into arrest during the night. She was resuscitated but deteriorated throughout the night and died at 6:40 this morning. The doctors in Israel who fought for her life the past three weeks have met with the parents and are deeply grieved.

15 December 2003 Baby Bayan had a "major accident" this morning while being suctioned, with a hard time oxygenating and her blood pressure dropping. But now (Monday evening in Israel) ICU director Dr. Sion Houri says she "is behaving in a decent way."

13 December 2003 Dr. Sion Houri, head of the ICU in Israel which is giving round-the-clock care to the Iraqi baby Bayan after her heart surgery, reports that over the last 24 hours she is "a touch more stable, but still very fragile."

27 November 2003 Bayan spent more than 21 hours on the operating table before she was stable enough to move this morning to the pediatric ICU. I stopped in several times throughout the night and found the team of doctors full of energy and focus and doing every thing they could to save her. I could only say to myself that they are heros.

25 November 2003 God continues to unfold an amazing story in the life of baby Bayan from Iraq. This morning the deputy chief of mission at the Israeli embassy in Amman, Jordan, called us in and personally wrote out by hand visas for Bayan and her mother and father to enter Israel for her emergency heart surgery. He spoke very warmly of his wishes for better relations with the Arab world and sent Bayan off with his blessing.

22 November 2003 Wednesday a team of us were in the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk to meet American army cardiologist John Scott, who has been screening children in the region with heart defects. A two-day-old baby girl named Bayan was brought into the clinic while we there.