Manuela flown to S'pore for treatment

Manuela flown to S'pore for treatment

Leony Aurora and Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post/Jakarta/Tangerang

A five-year-old girl who was critically injured in the Australian
Embassy blast was flown to Singapore on Friday to receive
specialist treatment.

Elisabeth Manuela Bambina Musu's chances of full recovery were
"quite high", said Charles van Reenan, a medical director with
SOS International that conducted the evacuation, as quoted by The
Associated Press.

Manuela had two large pieces of shrapnel removed from her
abdomen at the Metropolitan Medical Centre (MMC) Hospital in
South Jakarta, where she was treated initially.

Separately, officials said 38 of 182 injured victims were
reported to have been discharged from hospitals across the
capital.

Manuela and her mother, Maria Eva Komalawati, were queuing at
the embassy to pick up her new Australian passport when the bomb
went off. Eva died instantly, along with eight others.

Manuela's uncle, Budi Anto, said the girl had regained
consciousness and kept asking for her mother. "She hasn't been
told about her mother yet."

Budi said the family had preferred to keep Manuela in the
capital, so that her father, Emanuel Musu -- an Italian -- could
see Eva and visit his daughter on the same day.

As of Friday afternoon, Eva's body was laid out in an open
casket at a sister's home in Curug, Tangerang, where relatives
and friends came to pay their last respects.

"We haven't decided whether she will be buried here or in
Italy," Eva's eldest sister Christina Emidawati, 42, told The
Jakarta Post. "We're waiting for the arrival of her husband from
Italy at 10 p.m."

However, some confusion exists in regards Manuela's parentage.

According to the family, Eva, the youngest of six children,
was working as a tourist guide in Bali when she met Emanuel, and
the two were wed in Italy in 1998 and had lived there since.

The Australian government, however, claimed that Manuela was
the daughter of David Norman, a policeman in suburban Sydney, and
was granted Australian citizenship on Sept. 1.

In a statement issued by the New South Wales State Police,
Norman said he was traveling to Singapore to be with his
daughter, whom he affectionately called "Manny".

Eva's family has remained firm that Emanuel is the biological
father of Manuela and that she is an Italian citizen.

Katarina, another sister, said Eva came home to Indonesia for
an extended holiday two months ago. "Emanuel was going to pick
them up next February," she said.