Last week I put forward a proposal in the Storting which is not about me, but which nevertheless feels very personal. I asked the Storting to 1: Go in favor of an international humanitarian initiative to get injured Palestinian children and their families away from the Gaza Strip and to medical treatment in Europe, and 2: That Norway should undertake to accept a large number of injured children so that we can provide them with health care here. That was how my father came to Norway. One autumn day in 1968, he arrived at Fornebu Airport together with 12 other injured Vietnamese children. Although he was very ill, and traumatized and in great pain, he smiled as wide as he could for news’s film camera when he was carried out of the plane. As an orphaned 14-year-old, with a severe spinal cord injury, this was his only and best chance. If he hadn’t been allowed to come here, he wouldn’t have survived. I grew up with several “aunts” and “uncles” who, together with dad, got a second chance in 1968. Due to a group of committed volunteers, and (eventually) a benevolent Norwegian government, the Vietnamese children received treatment at Sunnaas hospital , and growing up at the institution that became known as Vi-Et-Hjem at Nesodden. That all my Vietnamese aunts and uncles had physical war injuries, I rarely thought about when I was a child. Until I met a man who didn’t have crutches, was in a wheelchair or walked with a prosthesis, but still claimed to be Vietnamese. Five-year-old me found that hard to believe. All Vietnamese were in wheelchairs, right? Although I have never experienced war, I, like many so-called hyphenated Norwegians, am a child of war. As the war raged in Vietnam, and the United States dropped more bombs on the small country than were dropped during the entire Second World War, the international organization Terre Des Hommes rescued hundreds of injured Vietnamese children ashore for medical treatment in Europe. Now it is Israel that bombs, and Gaza’s children who need our help. Last week, health authorities in Gaza reported that more than 7,700 children have been injured since 7 October. A British doctor who has been working at the Shifa hospital in recent weeks estimates that 900 children have had their limbs amputated. The organization Save the Children reports that they have started using a new term in Gaza: “Injured child without surviving family members”. Who will take care of them? Who will give them food, water and security? The war-injured Palestinian children need both immediate health care and thorough medical follow-up in the longer term. Children have the right to treatment, but it is impossible in Gaza now, a conflict zone with terrible humanitarian conditions and with all hospitals partially or completely out of service. According to the WHO, only one of these has the capacity to treat critical trauma cases or perform complicated surgery. It has also been a problem for many years to get access to adequate health care for the inhabitants of the Gaza Strip due to Israel’s blockade and border control. Norway has the opportunity to help, but in a letter to the foreign affairs committee, Espen Barth Eide writes that he will not offer Palestinian children who are badly injured in the hostilities in Gaza health care in Norway. I hope the members of the foreign affairs committee see that Barth Eide’s argument does not hold water. The Minister for Foreign Affairs believes that Norway can help most people where they are or in the surrounding areas. Both Egypt, Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Turkey and France have said they will offer Palestinian children treatment in their countries, in addition to contributing with emergency aid and medical aid in the Gaza Strip. There is thus no contradiction between flying out patients and giving people help where they are or in neighboring areas. We can do both. That Norway undertakes to accept injured children will in itself be important, because it will enable other countries to consider the same. If Norway and the EU open an airlift and make evacuation planes available to take out the war-damaged children and their families, it will put enormous international pressure on Israel to open the border for these children. In Gaza now, there are thousands of injured Palestinian children who need help. Many of them have no family left. Every child we can help here in Norway will be one less life on the world’s conscience. Norway, as a humanitarian power, can take our share of the responsibility. My father and the other children who were allowed to come to Norway during the Vietnam War were given the chance to create a life for themselves, despite severe injuries. Some of them went back, some stayed here, and worked, raised families and became part of our society. I owe my life to the people in Norway who chose to help the war-damaged children at the time. Norway was no richer then than we are today. Norway has the resources to help a new generation of war-injured children in acute need, and give them the same chance dad got. I hope the majority in the Storting agrees with that. Also read: Leader of Doctors Without Borders on the situation in Gaza:
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Let injured Palestinian children come to Norway – Statement
