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The Sabateen clan recognized the dewy-eyed boy in the World Vision sponsorship card from his birth date and the striped collar of his cardigan.
His mother used to make him wear that sweater on special occasions.
It was their Othman, who turned 18 on Monday but at the time was 5. None of his relatives recalled signing him up for the World Vision program — nor receiving any money.
“We want to know: Who took the photo? What was their aim?” asked Othman’s uncle Abdul-Hamid Sabateen, a chicken farmer in Husan, a Palestinian village on the outskirts of Bethlehem.
I had come to Husan to find Othman after a chance meeting with an Australian police officer months before.
I was lost in Sydney’s airport, and he helped me find the departure gate.
On the way, I mentioned my work as a journalist in the Middle East, and the officer — who is 44 and spoke on the condition that he be identified only by his first name, Brendan, because of his work — said he had been interested in the Palestinian cause since he was a teenager.
Brendan told me that in 2003 he had signed up to “sponsor” Othman through World Vision, a Christian charity whose website highlights faces and biographies of children from impoverished places around the world, saying that $39 a month can “change a child’s world for good.”
Over the next five years, Brendan said, he sent at least $1,100, along with Christmas and Easter cards, photographs and letters for Othman.
He never got any response from the boy, and always wondered what had become of him.
He did not know Othman’s last name, but remembered that he was from Husan, a village of about 7000. Read more
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