A 12-Year-Old Casualty of War Recovers in Hospital
Alessio Mamo's portrait of Manal, a 12-year-old Iraqi girl who suffered severe burns to her arms and face after a missile explosion in Kirkuk, won a World Press Photo award in 2018. The image was taken at the Médecins Sans Frontières Al-Mowasah hospital in Amman, Jordan, where Manal was undergoing long-term treatment.
Mamo, who began his photography career focusing on aesthetics, shifted his focus to social injustice after covering a 2013 shipwreck off Lampedusa that killed over 250 Eritrean migrants. He later traveled to the Middle East with journalist Marta Bellingreri to work on The Hospital of All the Wars project.
Manal's Story
Manal, then 12, needed extensive surgery and wore a protective mask for about five hours daily. Despite her injuries, Mamo describes her as a "beautiful, amazing girl" who loved telling stories and participating in hospital activities. He maintains contact with her family and visited her in Kirkuk last year, where she now lives with her uncle at age 19.
The portrait was taken spontaneously, with Manal's mother offering Iraqi sweets and biscuits. Mamo notes, "In many ways she seemed to me like a regular young girl."
Children as Primary Victims of Conflict
Mamo, now a father, feels increasingly urgent about children suffering in conflict zones. He plans to travel to Beirut with the Guardian to work on a project about children harmed by the ongoing war, noting that a huge number have been wounded in recent Israeli attacks.
"I feel a huge amount of anger seeing children suffer," Mamo says. "I try to channel what I see, and the anger I feel, into my work, while always trying to do my best in the hope that these stories can raise awareness among as many readers as possible."
Importance of Continuing These Stories
Mamo emphasizes the need to keep telling such stories: "The moment we stop, and allow them to go unheard, we will live in a world where nobody cares about the suffering of the less fortunate." He hopes his work can "plant small seeds and open small windows of awareness – seeds that might one day take root and build a critical mass."
