Husband set his pregnant wife on fire over 'abortion refusal'

A five-month pregnant Lebanese woman with full body burns is fighting a ‘bleak’ battle for survival after her husband set fire to her because she refused to have an abortion.

Hana Mohammed Khodor, 21, was rushed to a hospital in Tripoli in critical condition after her husband, identified as AA, set her ablaze with a gas canister.

A doctor said that they had to operate to remove the fetus after it died and the mother’s chances of survival are ‘very bleak.’

The horrific attack is alleged to have started with AA viciously beating his young pregnant wife when she told him she wanted to keep their baby, due to be born in December.

The argument stemmed from the financial burden that the child would put on the family, with the couple reportedly coming from poor upbringings in the north of the country.

A doctor from Al-Salam Hospital told the Arab News that Khodor was admitted on August 6 ‘suffering of 100 percent body burns.’

The doctor said: ‘As we speak, she is battling for her life. She is between life and death in the intensive care unit.

According to Al-Salam Hospital’s medical report, if she survives, she will need three months of further treatment.

Family friend Abdul Rahman Haddad said that her situation is ‘too delicate and serious,’ and her hospital bill is already in the thousands of dollars.

‘She needs 15 blood platelets (transfusions) daily, and each costs $100, aside from the daily costs of the hospital bed, medical equipment and ICU treatment. Her family is extremely poor, and she is a young woman … they need any form of medical assistance,’ said Haddad.

Lebanese Internal Security Forces arrested the husband, who had been planning to flee the country, Haddad said.