Several of us were on our way to a rebel base in the middle of Mozambique, to ask the commander’s permission to set up a food for work programme in the region. We were a little apprehensive: on our previous visit we’d been fired on and had to leave in a hurry.
The negotiations were cautious, but we got what we wanted. As we were about to leave, a man came running up. His loaded rifle had been picked up by his son, Antonio, who had accidentally shot himself. Could we take the child to hospital?
How could we refuse? We drove to his home and found the child writhing on the floor, blood from a wound in his side staining his dirty shirt. His father picked him up and got back into the Land Rover with us. It took us two hours to travel the 20 miles to the nearest town. Every pothole made Antonio wince, but he no longer had the energy to cry. The need for speed had to be weighed against his discomfort. Antonio’s father was visibly relieved as the flag with the familiar red cross came into view.
“I’m sorry, we can’t do anything for him. The bullet is too deep for us to 
reach.” The French doctor shrugged sympathetically, but his sad eyes showed that this was not the first child he had been unable to save. Shortage of medicine, of staff, equipment, is a story repeated all over Africa
“We’ll take him to the UN base,” suggested our team leader. “They’ve got a hospital for their soldiers. We’ll see if they can help.”
Antonio’s bandages were changed again, he was given a drip to prevent dehydration, and the makeshift ambulance set off again. The UN base was over 100 miles away. The road was better, with tarmac in places, but all the bridges had been destroyed and there were many bomb craters. “How can a hospital not be able to help?” wailed the increasingly disconsolate father. There was no reply. Everyone was asking themselves the same question.
Still bleeding internally, Antonio was drifting into a coma. Still twenty miles to go. Ten miles. The sun was setting as a distinctive white personnel carrier appeared over the brow of a hill. We flagged it down, and explained the situation. The blue-helmeted lieutenant radioed ahead to warn his base. By the time Antonio’s unconscious body was carried into the operating theatre, the surgeons were scrubbed up and ready.
Antonio survived his ordeal, and is back home again. We didn’t do anything special, we didn’t have any particular skills. We just happened to be in the right place at the right time. For me, that’s the essence of missions: If you don’t go, you can’t be there to help.
Tim Herbert, Syzygy
