In case you missed it, there is an urgent fundraising appeal for Southampton PhD student Arij Altai, who featured on BBC South Today as she searches for a way to be reunited with her family in Iraq. We have provided an update to this story at the bottom of this post.
Arij, 38, has been diagnosed with terminal cancer and is hopeful she’ll be able to travel home one last time. Supported by the Iraqi government, Arij and her husband Ahmed both came to Southampton in 2013 to study for PhDs in linguistics, joined by their son, Ali who is eight years old.
Just one year later, Arij was diagnosed with breast cancer which was successfully treated. Earlier this year, however, an aggressive form of secondary breast cancer returned. Meanwhile, after completing his PhD, Ahmed has returned to Iraq with their son, Ali.
Arij and Ahmed are now hopeful she will be able to travel to Iraq to see her son but the restrictive cost of travelling by the specialist medical flight she requires, has seen friends and supporters in Southampton launch an online campaign to raise the necessary funds Arij and Ahmed will need to make the trip possible.
Staff and students who wish to help can find further information here. You can also read Arij’s story on the BBC website.
Update
On Thursday evening, the University of Southampton made a commitment of £22,000 in philanthropic donations to support the medical costs to fly Arij home so that she may see her son.
The philanthropic donations come from two University funds, made possible by our donor community, which help students in exceptional hardship situations such as this. We’ve moved quickly to ensure that the funds were released and are now contributing to the donations made by many individual supporters to enable Arij to fly home.
Our thoughts are with Arij and her family at this difficult time.
