Desperate Pakistan family awaits US visa for 6-year-old girl

A U.S. hospital has offered to perform a surgery for free that could significantly improve Maria's quality of her life, but the American Embassy in Islamabad has so far twice refused to give the family visas to travel to the United States, said the girl's father, Shahid Ullah speaking to The Associated Press by phone from Rawalpindi in Pakistan.

Frustrated and frightened, Ullah has now turned to an American lawyer, Facebook and the media for help, starting a campaign he says could be his daughter's last resort.

Through the internet, he tracked down doctors with expertise in Maria's condition and families with children who suffer from the same disease from countries as far as Chile, Britain and America steered him to the Nemours/Alfred I DuPont Hospital for Children in Wilmington, Delaware.

"The hope is to do the surgery for the child . . . without any cost to the family," said Chris Manning, who is with the Nemours Children's Health System public relations department, adding that the hospital has done multiple surgeries such as the one required for Maria.

In an email to The Associated Press Harms said that housing for the family in the U.S. has been arranged and "the airline tickets have been donated."