But as the hospital prepared to perform the operation, an unexpected snag was discovered: The 18-year-old girl belongs to the messianic Jehovah’s Witnesses sect, whose believers are forbidden to donate or receive blood – even in life-threatening situations. Without a transfusion, the surgery cannot be performed.

Kabsinga Anasitsi, the sixth of seven children, lives with her family in a small village called Kaduha, located south of Kigali, the Rwandan capital. In a brief conversation with Haaretz, she says she was diagnosed with heart problems when she was 8, after she had suffered from respiratory difficulties. It was later discovered that she suffers from a complex heart defect called the Tetralogy of Fallot, which greatly impedes the blood supply to the lungs. This defect doomed her to a life trying not to overexert her heart.