5-year-old Jakarta blast victim wakes up crying

5-year-old Jakarta blast victim wakes up crying

Agencies Singapore

After days under heavy sedation, a five-year-old girl critically wounded in the Australian Embassy bombing in Indonesia finally opened her eyes on Tuesday and communicated with her stepfather and grandfather.

Elisabeth Manuela Bambina Musu's Italian stepfather, Manuel Musu, was at her bedside when she awoke.

"She opened her eyes and she looked at me," Musu said. "I have given her so many questions about her life and she answered yes, yes, moving the head and she looked at me."

"The first time she opened her eyes she cried," Musu added.

Elisabeth had her respirator removed on Tuesday morning and has been breathing well on her own and talking with her step- grandfather, Enrico Musu, said Ng Puay Yong, a consultant neurosurgeon at Mount Elizabeth hospital, where she is being treated.

According to Ng, Elisabeth is still unaware that her mother, 27-year-old Maria Eva Komalawati, was killed in Thursday's blast.

Ng said doctors remain concerned about the possibility of the girl developing an infection but that there was "no evidence of serious infection yet."

Elisabeth was admitted on Friday to Mount Elizabeth, where she had been kept under heavy sedation because of her injuries.

Several large pieces of shrapnel were removed from her abdomen and brain and many smaller ones still remain in her body. Doctors have said she will suffer some paralysis on her right side but the extent of the disability won't be clear for another six months.

When the blast occurred, Elisabeth was heading for the embassy to pick up her new Australian passport after becoming a citizen on Sept. 1.

Komalawati's Italian husband, Musu, and the girl's biological father, Australian police officer David Norman, were both keeping a constant vigil by her side.

Dual citizenship - Australian and Italian - is now an option under consideration for a five-year-old Jakarta bomb blast victim, a newspaper reported on Tuesday.

With both claiming custody of the child, The Straits Times said dual citizenship is an option being sought.

Norman, 25, and Musa, 31, have been drawn into a custody tussle since Komalawati, was killed in the explosion. Eight other people died and 182 were injured.

Musu said he was grateful for the immediate assistance given to Elisabeth by the Australian authorities and the High Commission in Jakarta.

"I am glad that the Australian High Commission and the Italian Embassy are cooperating to do their best to help my daughter," he said.

Musu and Komalawati married in 1998 and lived in Italy.