“He had just gone into the yard to play”

• Iraq

“He had just gone into the yard to play,” are the words that the father of Rayid repeated to the doctor. Rayid is ten years old and had just arrived at the hospital. He lost two fingers from his left hand and had multiple lacerations on his face and chest.

His “crime”? He went to play with friends outside his house in Tilkaf, a small village 20 kilometers from Mosul. A metal object caught his attention and Rayid picked it up not realising it could be a mine, or an unexploded device. The object exploded in Rayid’s hands, wounding him. Friends rushed to tell his father who quickly brought Rayid to the nearest medical facility, the Emergency Hospital in Erbil, where medical staff stabilized him.

If there are no complications within two weeks, doctors hope Rayid will be back at home playing with his friends.