Injured Yazidi toddler to reunite with family | CNN

Dilbireen Muhsin, a 2-year-old boy from Iraq's Yazidi community, was born in a refugee camp January 4, 2015.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

Dilbireen, a cheerful child, has a love of animals.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

Around his first birthday, Dilbireen was burned in a fire. He flew to the US for reconstructive surgery on his face in October.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

Since his first surgery, Dilbireen has been cared for by a Yazidi advocate, Adlay Kejjan, in Michigan.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

As Dilbireen waits for his second round of surgeries, his parents, who are still in Iraq, have finally been issued visas so they can come to the US to be with their son.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

Dilbireen celebrated his 2nd birthday in the US last month. In a message to the boy, father Ajeel Muhsin said, "I am hopeful that we will come soon. Finish all your operations. After that, we will return to Iraq. We love you. Kisses."

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

Dilbireen has grown into an independent toddler who brushes his own teeth.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

Kejjan said said she prayed that Dilbireen's parents would get the travel visas they needed to by their son's side.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

Dilbireen has started to notice that "he is different," Kejjan said.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

"When he plays with kids, he like touches their eyes and nose. He realizes there's something different about him, and it's really, really sad, because these kids, they run away. ... They're always scared of him," Kejjan said.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

Kejjan, who works as a pilot, has shown a curious Dilbireen how airplanes are operated.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

Kejjan, who also works as a paramedic, has shown Dilbireen some of her medical equipment.

Courtesy Adlay Kejjan

Yazidi toddler waits without his parents for surgery

Story highlights

Two-year-old Dilbireen has been facing surgery in the US without his parents

Now, after months in limbo, the boy's parents were issued visas to be by his side

"It really does sort of take a village to make something like this happen," volunteer says

CNN —

After about four months apart, 2-year-old Dilbireen Muhsin soon may be reunited with his family.

The Yazidi boy, whose name means “wounded heart” in Kurdish, was brought to the United States late last year to receive medical treatment for severe burns on his face.

He was left in the care of a Michigan woman while his parents and newborn brother were in their native Iraq, trying to be by Dilbireen’s side and, mostly recently, facing President Donald Trump’s travel ban.

Now, Dilbireen’s parents and brother have been issued visas to come to the United States, a joyous turn of events for a family that has experienced suffering.

“We have confirmation that they have visas in hand, which is great news, and so now we’re organizing travel for them to come to Boston and organizing for Dilbireen to come to Boston from Michigan and resume his treatment,” said Scott LaStaiti, a Los Angeles-based film producer and philanthropist who helped get Dilbireen medical care.

“It’s both exciting, because the family will be reunited, and very important, because now he can resume the treatment that he is desperately in need of,” LaStaiti said.

‘The plight of his people’

Dilbireen was one of many Yazidi children needing medical attention when LaStaiti traveled to northern Iraq with Sally Becker, founder of the UK-based charity Road to Peace, in 2015.