Malaga's Hospital Materno successfully performs heart surgery on Senegalese boy with Down syndrome

Cheikh Ibra is a one-year-old Senegalese boy with Down syndrome. Retired couple Mari Carmen and José from the Puerto de la Torre district in Malaga hosted him and his mother Awa while they stayed in the city so that the little boy could undergo surgery for a complex heart condition.

This has been the biggest challenge of his short time on Earth so far, as the disease represents certain death in the medium term if not addressed early enough.

Cheikh was able to overcome this ordeal thanks to the support of the Fundación Infancia Solidaria, which brings five or six children to the Materno Infantil hospital each year to receive medical treatment unavailable in their home countries.

"Heart disease is often associated with Down syndrome. Many children have it and Cheikh Ibra needed surgery before his first birthday. Furthermore, the child was severely malnourished, coming from a very poor family, so the breast milk he was receiving was less nutritious. To give you an idea, at one year he weighed 4.5 kilos, while my baby, at nine months, weighs 11.5 kilos. We couldn't wait for him to gain weight because the surgery would be impossible if it took him a long time: we had to choose to operate so that he would have a future," head of the NGO Manolo Cano tells SUR.

Awa and Cheikh Ibra arrived in November 2025. The little boy was operated on in December. Although the intervention was a success, malnutrition made the recovery more difficult than expected. As Cano says, there were four or five moments when his condition would worsen even if it "seemed that he was getting better".

The little boy spent two months in the ICU due to the ups and downs he experienced after the surgery, but finally, mother and son returned to their country on 30 March.

The NGO expresses deep gratitude for the paediatric cardiology and paediatric cardiovascular surgery units at the Maternal Infantil hospital and all the healthcare staff. Cheikh was also able to come to Malaga thanks to authorisation granted by the Andalusian regional government's cooperation fund.

Sponsorship from the Premios Blas Infante Casares Solidario was crucial for Cheikh's journey. The organisation has also recently helped another little boy and his mother travel from Nicaragua.

"Because he had feeding difficulties after being weaned, the doctor had to keep seeing him until the day before he left. He was fed through an IV for a long time. His stomach was paralysed and he had to get used to eating by mouth. The correction of the heart condition is closely related to malnutrition. He went through very difficult times, but fortunately, he pulled through," Cano says.

"The mother is very grateful. They are very poor and it's a country where the child had no opportunities. If he hadn't had the surgery, he would have died in the medium term. Now he has that chance. We also have to thank José and Mari Carmen, a retired couple from Malaga, who have been Awa and Cheinkh Ibra's host family. Everything has been easier thanks to them and they've done an incredible job. Now they have a grandson in Senegal," Cano says.

In 2025, five children underwent surgery at the Materno hospital, which is expecting a little girl with a heart condition from Morocco to arrive soon.