BRAVE: Afghan girl Marizeh looks happy yesterday (above) as she awaits surgery in New York to repair facial bullet damage. (NY Post: Chad Rachman)
BRAVE: Afghan girl Marizeh looks happy yesterday (right) as she awaits surgery in New York to repair facial bullet damage (inset). (NY Post: Chad Rachman)
An adorable 6-year-old girl who was shot by the Taliban in Afghanistan will undergo surgery at a Long Island hospital today to repair her shattered little face and allow her to breathe normally again.
Little Marizeh — her last name is being withheld to protect her surviving family members in Afghanistan — lost her right eye in a bloody attack months ago. A bullet entered her left cheek and exited her right temple, said Long Island plastic surgeon Dr. Kaveh Alizadeh.
“They killed her father and brother, and they shot her in the face. They left her for dead,’’ Alizadeh said. “Fortunately, she survived.”
Alizadeh works with Mission Restore, a group of doctors who treat victims from war-torn areas around the world. He will perform today’s surgery at South Nassau Communites Hospital in Oceanside. During the operation, expected to take about two hours, Alizadeh and his team will reconstruct Marizeh’s skull, remove scar tissue from her nose and graft cartilage from her ear to the nasal septum.
That procedure will restore Marizeh’s ability to breathe through her nose, enabling her to sleep through the night for the fist time since she was shot. She will also receive a prosthetic eye to replace a temporary one.
The little girl was brought to the US by the Global Medical Relief Fund of Staten Island.
“She is a precious little angel. We love her,’’ the group’s Elissa Montanti said yesterday.
“She’s adorable. She was shot by the Taliban but she acts like nothing happened.’’
Because Marizeh speaks no English, Montanti said they use “charades” to communicate.
“She has been through a hell,” said Montanti adding that Marizeh survived because her father shielded her before being killed himself.
“I can’t imagine what she feels because she witnessed that,’’ Montanti said. But, “She is full of life and always smiling.’’