Mobile clinic and MSF activities in Erbil, Norther Iraq. Shot for Financial Times newspaper Seasonal Appeal, writer Erika Solomon.


Iraq: treating mental trauma by Erika Solomon for the FT.

Doctor Humam Mohammed, 28, dreamt of being an MSF volunteer after seeing the group on Iraqi television as a boy. It was a prospect that he assumed was out of reach as he was completing his training in general medicine — and even more so after the summer of 2014, when Isis stormed his home city of Mosul.

Dr Mohammed worked for five months in Mosul under the jihadi group’s rule, and lived in fear of it before he and his wife escaped. Despite that, he says he would treat anyone who crossed his path — even someone from the Islamist group that forced him to leave his home: “That is our motto at MSF: complete neutrality.”
Dr Humam Mohammed in the mobile clinic that he and three colleagues operate in the Debaga refugee camp near Erbil, Iraq

Dr Humam Mohammed in the mobile clinic that he and three colleagues operate in the Debaga refugee camp near Erbil, Iraq

The doctor now works at an MSF mobile clinic — a bus loaded with pills and paperwork that is driven around the Debaga internal displacement camp in northern Iraq, run by the semi-autonomous Kurdistan Regional Government.

Thousands have fled to these seemingly endless rows of plastic tents since Baghdad set out on its internationally backed campaign to retake Mosul this autumn. Every day, a crowd of patients stands in the heat and dust for a chance to sit with doctors and discuss what ails them.

Some are aching after spending hours on the run to flee their homes. Others are struggling to deal with babies, frail from malnutrition after months trapped in a town on the brink of starvation.
Patients wait outside the MSF mobile clinic to be assessed by the nurse, Sufyan Ahmed, before entering the bus

Patients wait outside the MSF mobile clinic to be assessed by the nurse, Sufyan Ahmed, before entering the bus

Dr Mohammed’s status as a fellow refugee makes it easier for them to accept his tough advice. He scolds mothers who do not follow his advice on improving babies’ nutrition, and teases an old man who complains of a painful cough but reluctantly admits that he is also a smoker.

“You’re smoking two packets of cigarettes a day,” Dr Mohammed jokes. “That’s all?”
Dr Rasha Khamis examines a patient with diabetes at the clinic in Debaga 4. The small MSF team works to give the camp’s residents access to primary healthcare

Dr Rasha Khamis examines a patient with diabetes at the clinic in Debaga 4. The small MSF team works to give the camp’s residents access to primary healthcare

MSF treats psychological wounds as seriously as physical injuries. In camps like Debaga, where nearly everyone has fled from Isis rule, doctors say most patients struggle with psychological trauma. MSF has also set up mental health clinics in its camps in Iraq.

There can be a stigma over psychotherapy in conservative parts of the Middle East, including Iraq, but Bilal Budair, the clinic’s manager, was shocked when he saw how quickly the programme was embraced.

“The pain transcended the stigma,” he says. “People are living with unbearable pain.”
Bilal Budair, who manages the clinic in Debaga

Mahmoud Hebib, who manages the clinic in Debaga

Umm Ahmed, her face furrowed in a frown, tells of the nightmares she has had since fleeing her home in Hawija near Kirkuk. Using only a nickname to ensure the safety of relatives still living there, she breaks down as she describes begging Isis to give back the bodies of two of her sons, executed by the group.

“I saw so many people killed by Isis. Every time I put my head on the pillow, I can’t sleep,” she says. “I’ve memorised all their faces.”