Fixing bodies broken in years of Arab world violence

[Gerald]

Abdullah Dawoud has been attending the clinic since it first opened in 2006,Six years ago a group of surgeons opened a temporary clinic in Jordan to operate on Iraqis with injuries untreatable in their home country. But recent violence in Libya, Yemen and Syria has led to the project being extended and expanded. After the horrors of war and torture, the patients are given a chance of a normal life.

Abdullah Dawoud lies in a hospital bed, barely flinching as a nurse removes stitches from around his artificial eye.

In 2006, while attending a family funeral in the Iraqi capital Baghdad, he lost the left side of his face and his left leg in a bomb blast which also killed several of his relatives.

Since then he has endured 25 separate operations. And he is only 12 years old.

"He doesn't complain at all," says his nurse. "He's very polite and very quiet."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-18118527

Note: 21 May 2012 Last updated at 10:09 GMT