“Are you ready to walk today?” Fatima, a Handicap International physical therapist asks 11-year-old Abdel Hamid while checking the external fixations on his leg. Abdel’s face lights up with a smile. “You think I can?” he asks. Fatima winks at him, points to a pair of crutches she brought especially for him, and asks him to sit on the edge of the bed. He swivels slowly sideways on the mattress, getting ready to make his move.

Less than a month ago, one-year-old Ali lived in Mosul, with his brother, sister, and parents. “One day, as we were all sitting at home, armed men came,” Ali’s aunt, Kitba explains. “They gathered us along with some of our neighbors and took us to a school where we were used as human shields. The bombings soon started and Ali’s parents died instantly. His older brother died too. He was only 9 years old.” 

Ali’s grandparents, uncle, and aunt survived the bombings and fled, carrying Ali and his sister in their arms. “As we were running toward an army-controlled area, bombings kept getting stronger. It was as if it would never stop. My dad was so scared that he had a stroke. We were brought to a field hospital and then transferred here, to Qayyarah.” 

At Qayyarah hospital located south of Mosul, the heat is stifling. Mosquito nets have been installed over each patient’s bed, to protect them from the hundreds of flies flying under the ceiling. A dozen beds are aligned one by the other, and our staff hear a baby crying toward the back.  

Through one of the mosquito nets, we could see the silhouette of a young woman, Kitba, holding little Ali in her arms. Kitba tells Khaled, a Handicap International physical therapist that Ali is feeling feverish and seems to be in pain. “But he’s strong and he’ll recover,” she says while looking tenderly at her nephew. 

While Kitba talks with our team, Ali plays with an apple and an orange, given by the hospital staff for lunch. Big scars are still visible on his face and he has trouble moving with the big cast on his leg. “He still has shrapnel in his body and his leg was broken in the bombing,” Kitba continues. Khaled gives advice on how to ease and speed up Ali’s recovery. He explains that as soon as the doctors remove his cast, Handicap International will provide Ali with physical therapy. “Physical therapy is essential for a full recovery,” he explains. 

Kitba listens carefully to what Khaled and other Handicap International staff tell her. It seems that she already sees Ali as her own son. “When we leave the hospital, my nephew will come with us,” she says with tears in her eyes. “His future is in God’s hands, but my only wish is for him to be happy, just like for my own son. When he’s old enough to understand, I will tell him what happened to his parents. I want everybody to know their story.” 

Mosul emergency: Fighting between armed groups and government forces in Iraq in recent years has displaced more than three million people. An estimated 11 million civilians already need humanitarian assistance in the country. The Mosul offensive has presented international organizations with an unprecedented challenge. More than 485,000 people have fled the city since last October.

Handicap International and the Iraqi crisis: More than 200,000 people have benefited from Handicap International’s actions since the launch of its emergency operations in Iraq in 2014. Our actions are regularly reviewed to take into account a highly volatile situation across the whole of Iraqi territory. Handicap International currently organizes population protection activities, raises awareness of the risk from mines and conventional weapons, conducts non-technical surveys and clears potentially hazardous areas, provides physical and functional rehabilitation and psychosocial support, supports health centers, organizes training and advocacy, and provides technical support to partners to enhance the inclusion of vulnerable people (people with disabilities, casualties, older people, and others) within their services.

“Almost seven months after the start of the military operation to recapture the city of Mosul, more than 12,000 civilians have been injured in the assault or as they tried to escape the fighting,” explains Maud Bellon, Handicap International’s field coordinator for the Mosul emergency response. “More than half come from the western part of the city, where armed forces are still conducting military operations.” 

The city of Mosul has been the scene of intense fighting since October 2016. More than 485,000 people have fled the city and hundreds of thousands civilians remain trapped by the conflict. Since the start of military offensive’s second phase to capture the western part of the city, last February, there has been a sharp rise in the number of casualties. To provide assistance and get as close as possible to those affected, Handicap International is expanding its emergency response.

Direct response in East Mosul

“Although a lot of people living in the western part of the city are fleeing Mosul, many are also heading towards the city’s eastern districts, retaken by the army in January 2017,” explains Maud. “To cover as many needs as possible and to provide assistance directly to the population, we are going to extend our response into the city itself, in a health center, where several physical therapists, psychosocial workers, and psychologists will provide assistance to casualties.” Handicap International already works in Hamdanyiah and Qayyarah, two other hospitals on the outskirts of the city, providing patients with rehabilitation care.

Camp activities beefed up

The rise in casualties has been mirrored by a dramatic increase in population movements in recent weeks. “More than three quarters of civilians who have fled Mosul live in displaced people’s camps set up to the south and east of the city. Thousands of displaced people pass through the Hammam al Alil screening point every day. Our teams are working in six camps but we also recently began working in this area to provide faster assistance to displaced people,” Maud continues. “We intend to give priority to the most vulnerable people: civilian casualties, people with disabilities, and people suffering from psychological distress. They have been hit particularly hard by erratic access to care, bombing and the difficulties fleeing Mosul. For them, our assistance is vital.”

More and more returnees

Although tens of thousands of people continue to flee Mosul, the number of families returning to their areas of origin has also risen sharply. “More than 100,000 people have already returned to their homes and the number of returnees has even exceeded the number of arrivals, in some camps, over the last month,” Maud explains. “These areas are still extremely hazardous because they are littered with explosive remnants of war. We are continuing our risk education activities in the camps and in the buses transporting displaced people back to areas of Mosul recaptured by armed forces.” Since the start of its emergency response, Handicap International has already provided more than 25,000 people with risk education on explosive remnants of war. 

Mosul emergency: Fighting between armed groups and government forces in Iraq in recent years has displaced more than three million people. An estimated 11 million civilians already need humanitarian assistance in the country. The Mosul offensive has presented international organizations with an unprecedented challenge. More than 485,000 people have fled the city since last October.

Handicap International and the Iraqi crisis: More than 200,000 people have benefited from Handicap International’s actions since the launch of its emergency operations in Iraq in 2014. Our actions are regularly reviewed to take into account a highly volatile situation across the whole of Iraqi territory. Handicap International currently organizes population protection activities, raises awareness of the risk from mines and conventional weapons, conducts non-technical surveys and clears potentially hazardous areas, provides physical and functional rehabilitation and psychosocial support, supports health centers, organizes training and advocacy, and provides technical support to partners to enhance the inclusion of vulnerable people (people with disabilities, casualties, older people, and others) within their services.

Children play at the Khazer camp in Iraq.

Shams, 5, lives with cerebral palsy. Along with her family, she is now one of Iraq's millions of internally displaced people. Here, she receives physical therapy from Handicap International at a camp in Kirkuk.