A LITTLE St Helier girl will travel to Austria next week to have a lifesaving operation after Islanders raised £20,000 to pay for complex surgery.

Emilia Zubek (2 1/2) will go into hospital in Vienna next Sunday and will undergo an operation to rebuild her oesophagus on Wednesday 25 April. And yesterday her father Michal collected a final £3,000 payment from the William and Helena Taylor Trust run by Colin Taylor, who owns the Foresters Inn at Beaumont. The trust organised a fund-raising day at the home match of Premiership champions Chelsea FC last November to raise money for Emilia, who cannot eat properly after contracting a rare form of cancer. A malignant tumour was found in her oesophagus, which pressed against her windpipe and restricted her breathing. She was given a ten per cent chance to live. The operation she is having now is to rebuild her oesophagus to allow her to eat. The surgery will be done using tissue from her colon. The Zubeks live in Columbus Street in St Helier and the rare form of cancer was diagnosed only two weeks after Michal agreed to move the family to the Island to take up an IT consultancy post. Michal leaves tomorrow to travel to Poland to join Emilia and her mum, Olga. The family will then make the journey to Vienna later in the week.