Afghanistan bombing stopped for rescue of New Zealand boy

30 Nov, 2001 04:30 AM3 mins to read

12:30 pm - By DOUG LAING

Bombing of the Taleban in Afghanistan was halted for an hour last month to allow the evacuation of a badly-injured New Zealand boy from neighbouring Kazakhstan.

Eight-year-old Ethan Knezovich, from Hastings, suffered serious head and jaw injuries when he was knocked down by a car in the once-wealthy former Kazakhstan capital of Almaty, a few hours before bombing started on October 7.

The following day, the Americans stopped the air raids for one hour so an air ambulance could use Afghanistan air space to evacuate him to Helsinki for urgent medical treatment.

At the time international media reported a "one-hour window" had been created for "humanitarian reasons". and footage emerged of the evacuation of "a foreign boy".

But the boy's identity has been revealed publicly only this week, upon his arrival back in Hastings with parents Mark and Natasha and sister Eleisha, 10, a premature end to an intended two years of humanitarian aid in Central Asia.

His parents, members of the Hastings Assembly of God Church, said it was miraculous that Ethan survived his accident.

He had serious injuries and it was 36 hours before his evacuation plane arrived. The boy then had to endure the flight to Helsinki and was unconcious for the next 10 days.

Surgeons in Helsinki said the fracture to his jaw was one of the worst they had seen.

"But," said Mrs Knezovich as the family relaxed at the home of friends in Hastings yesterday, "the doctors have told us he can expect a 100 per cent recovery."

Four titanium plates remain in his jaw, triggering alarms airport-by-airport in a transglobal security panic as the family made their way back to New Zealand. But Ethan still hopes to go back to Kazakhstan.

"I wish I had two bodies," he said ponderously when asked how he felt about the dramas of the 11 months since the family left Hastings, intending to spend two years dispensing humanitarian aid in the Central Asian region.

It was his way of saying he would like to be both here and there and an indication of his concern for his young American mate Colin who dragged him out of the path of a second vehicle, and for the hundreds of children left behind in a plight he will probably always see as much worse than his own.

"It was a little bit embarrassing, our kid getting all the attention, leaving all the other children behind, just because we were from the West," said Mr Knezovich.

Backed by medical insurance which will also enable the family to return when Ethan is cleared, they left behind hospitals and intensive care units which had almost nothing, a legacy of the poverty gripping the country in the post-USSR era.

Dealing with consequences of poverty and focusing on orphaned children had dominated the family's lives in Almaty, a city of about 1.2 million at the foot of Tien Chan, a mountain range between Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan, near China.

Formerly from West Auckland, the Knezovich family moved to Hastings when Ethan was about a month old. The children have attended Frimley School. Mr Knezovich was a diesel mechanic and automotive engineer, and his wife worked in the corporate office of Richmond Ltd.

- HAWKE'S BAY TODAY

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