Nowzad

One of the last pictures taken of Simba

This is Simba Al Tikriti, Simba for short. He was the first cat I brought home to the UK in 2005. At the time I was living in Tikrit so getting him back to the UK was much more difficult than it was getting a cat out of Baghdad.

In the first instance there was no direct flight from Tikrit to Amman so Simba had to endure a 12 hour road trip down to Um Qasr and then a trip over the border to Kuwait. Once he arrived in Kuwait he was taken the International Veterinary Centre where he was boarded for a few weeks whilst the paperwork was completed to send him home.

His 6 months in quarantine passed without any problems and when he came home he settled quickly.

Happy boy

Unfortunately, he enjoyed his freedom a little too much and about 6 weeks after coming out of quarantine he was run over by a car and broke his pelvis in 2 places. As if this wasn’t bad enough about 3 weeks after this accident his leg got caught in a door and he broke his femur!!! It took some time but he did recover from both incidents although it cost a fortune to cat proof the garden so he couldn’t get out into the street again!

In 2008 Simba was starting to look very unhappy and was starting to bite. He was not happy with all the extra cats that were around and he wanted to go out into the street to play. Eventually I made the decision to let him out and sadly this decision resulted in Simba being hit by a car about 6 months later. He really enjoyed his 6 months of freedom and was in and out of the house all the time but unfortunately he had not learned from his last accident and kept crossing the road. He was hit by a car and a neighbour had to fetch my parents who then had to take Simba to the vets but his injuries were too severe for him to be saved and he was put to sleep on 23 January 2009.

Don't mess with a cat with a gun!

On my bed

Simba in quarantine

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