COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (AP) – A desperate Pakistani family anxiously awaiting a U.S. visa for their ailing little girl is running out of time: Maria is just six years old but a rare genetic disease has left her frail body wracked with pain and stunted her growth.
Soon she will be unable to walk because her vertebrae are compressing her spinal cord.
A U.S. hospital has offered to perform a surgery for free that could significantly improve Maria’s quality of her life, but the American Embassy in Islamabad has so far twice refused to give the family visas to travel to the United States, said the girl’s father, Shahid Ullah speaking to The Associated Press by phone from Rawalpindi in Pakistan.
When he submitted a visa application again, he was told it will “take time,” he said. Frustrated and frightened, Ullah has now turned to an American lawyer, Facebook and the media for help, starting a campaign he says could be his daughter’s last resort.
The surgery in the U.S. has been scheduled for Nov. 2 and Ullah is pleading with anyone who will listen that Maria’s “case is different.”