The one who is kind to human beings is a humanitarian, but, what describes a person who cares for animals ignoring dangers even to his personal life ? Well, I could not find any word in the dictionary.
Here is a person by name Nameer Abdul Farah who lives in the war-ravaged Iraq, going round in his bullet-hit vehicle with a wounded leg, to treat his injured and sick patients, hold your breadth, the animals.
Yet, Fatah is not an ordinary veterinarian. Being a veterinarian, trained in East Germany for specialized treatment of small animals, for the past 26 years, he has been treating all types and categories of animals, be it the street dog or the tiger. He has a small but well equipped clinic with an operating theatre and the rich and famous are his clients. But what gives him fulfillment is treating the small domestic animals and he prefers to keep seriously-ill pets in his clinic so that they are not deprived of critical care.
The conflict-ridden Baghdad does not deter him from going around in his vehicle with all medicines and surgical equipments to treat the neglected animals on the road. He says that he has never been a target of any attack and in any case it does not deter him.
According to him one positive fall out of the Sadam Hussein era is the easy availability of the veterinary drugs which was either not available during his regime or was prohibitively costly.
Well Baghdad’s neglected animals need not worry as to what would happen after Farah, as his seven year old son also would like to become a veterinarian kindling the hopes that he would continue to serve them.