Two boys from Sao Tome and Principe are recovering well from serious burns after nearly a month of treatment in Taiwan, officials said yesterday.
Minister of Foreign Affairs Timothy Yang (楊進添) and Sao Tome and Principe Ambassador Jorge Amado were expected to visit the boys later in the day.
The boys, both seven years old, had life-threatening tissue adhesions when their conditions came to the attention of a Taiwanese medical team in the African ally country in the middle of March, according to Samuel Chen (陳士良), director-general of the ministry’s Department of African Affairs.
PHOTO: CNA
With the ministry's assistance, the two boys were brought to Taiwan on April 11 for treatment at Taipei's Wan Fang Hospital, Chen said.
Chen Chieh-feng (陳傑峰), head of the hospital's plastic surgery center, said that one of the boys had suffered third-degree burns over 40 percent of his body in an oil tank explosion.
He could barely stretch his arms as a result of muscle contraction, but his range of motion increased from just 20 degrees to 160 degrees after several skin grafts, Chen Chieh-feng said.
The other boy had sustained burns to the backs of his knees after spilling and igniting an oil container, leaving him unable to bend his knees, the doctor said. The patient can now stretch his knees straight and can also jump on one foot, he added.
He said that Sao Tome and Principe has a serious shortage of medical resources, with 120,000 people served by only 40 doctors on average, only one of whom is a surgeon.
The boys’ mothers, who accompanied them to Taiwan, are extremely grateful to Taiwan for the humanitarian assistance provided to their sons, he added.
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS