‘It’s my first time in Sulaymaniyah,’ continues Emad, who is from Mosul. ‘I had another prosthesis before, but it didn’t fit very well. This one I can really move. It feels like part of my body. This is really a hand worthy of the name. A hand that fits my body.’
I realise my plane is touching down on the runway in Italy. All I can do is repeat to myself the promise I’ve always made to our colleagues back in Afghanistan, and which I intend to keep: to return.
Taking things ‘small small’ sometimes makes you happier than you think. I’m certain, because I’ve felt it myself. I’ve spent so many days in Sierra Leone seeing people who are much happier than me, than us in Europe. They have barely anything, yet they’ve given me so much.
That is their right, as it is for any other human being.
Some of the hugs they give me literally make me quiver.
In October, Luca, Coordinator of our regional cardiac surgery programme, and Maria, a long-standing cardiologist at EMERGENCY, were in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea, for the first heart-screening misson at the new clinic at Orotta Hospital
There’s one thing I’m sure of and that’s the pure, gentle love that exists between a father and son. Just for a moment, it gives you a glimpse of beauty amid the horror of this war.
"Let’s look forward”. That is what we tell our patients every day, encouraging them to take back the life that war has snatched away. We help them to do just that.
We ask Europe to act immediately to avoid another war and to categorically refuse any support for military operations.
In the face of conflict, our human spirit and solidarity will always endure.
