Sydney woman helping war wounded walk again in Iraq

Therese Powell walked away from a comfortable life on Sydney’s Northern Beaches to help the war wounded from Iraq. Here she tells Jane Hansen her extraordinary story of how she ended up in the middle of war zone.

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Therese Powell could be sitting on her Collaroy deck enjoying the Sydney summer but instead the physiotherapist is halfway across the world in Baghdad’s heavily-fortified ‘green zone’.

Swapping the comfortable lifestyle of the Northern Beaches, the 56-year-old is helping those badly wounded in the drawn-out deadly hostilities that have beset the Iraqi capital to walk again.

As the physical rehabilitation program manager for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Iraq, she is quite literally giving people the chance of a new life.

Therese Powell has swapped life as a physiotherapist on Sydney’s Northern Beaches for war-torn Iraq as part of the Red Cross team. Picture: Alhamzah Jawad/ ICRC

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“I got to a crossroads in my career after 20 years in private practice and I’ve always loved travelling so I went into rehab with the ICRC,” Ms Powell said.

“It is incredibly challenging but we are fundamentally helping people in such a basic way.”

While former US President George W Bush declared the 2003 Iraq war over on May 1, just over a month after ‘the coalition of the willing’ invaded and toppled Saddam Hussein’s regime, the fallout continues to cut a swath through the innocent.

Children are still stepping on landmines and improvised explosive devices laid by insurgents and adults are still being targeted by suicide bombers.

Ms Powell sees the victims daily, in a rehabilitation job that is as heartbreaking as it is rewarding.

Ms Powell meets with Mohammed Rahma Esa 62, and amputee due to car explosion in 2005. Picture Alhamzah Jawad/ ICRC

Ahmad Hadi, 23, learning to walk again with the aid of an artificial limb and the help of Ms Powell. Picture: Alhamzah Jawad/ ICRC

“We see the result of conflict all the time,” she explains. “A quarter of those are injured by landmines. So many children have lost limbs and others have congenital deformities that need care, there is just so much need here.”

Her team’s work has transformed the lives of children like Thanoon.

The 11-year-old, from west Mosul, lost his foot when his house was hit by a mortar in March last year. He also lost his father, his nine-year-old sister and four other family members, including his uncle. Thanoon and his mother were the only survivors.

In the tragic aftermath of the blast, Thanoon felt ashamed of his missing lower leg. He didn’t play with other children and didn’t go to school. The school director told his mother that he needed to go to a special school but as a widow, she simply cannot afford it.

A US soldier walks through debris left by a massive car bomb that exploded near the Australian Embassy in 2005 in the al Karrada neighbourhood of Baghdad, Iraq. Picture: Darren McCollester

Smoke billowing following an airstrike by US-led international coalition forces targeting Islamic State (IS) group in Mosul. Iraq in July, 2017. Picture: Ahmad al-Rubaye

Fitted with a new prosthetic leg a few months ago, his life has been transformed.

“He is doing amazingly well and he has started playing a little football. When children have such a disability their access to education can be affected, so now he has a leg, he can get back to school,” Ms Powell said.

Ms Powell and her team also recently helped Ahmed Qusay, an 18-month-old boy brought by his parents to Sadr Al-Qanat physical rehabilitation centre to be fitted with orthotics to cure his bowed legs.

“It’s not uncommon for children here to have bowed legs,” she said.

Birth defects are also common, possibly a legacy of depleted uranium from bombs dropped in Iraq since the first war in 1991.

Ahmad Hadi, from Khanaqin, was disabled from birth. Born without a leg, he had always been on crutches. The 23-year-old received his first artificial limb in September last year.

“He had been going around on crutches or hopping his entire life, but to have a prosthesis and no longer be hindered like, that is just so important,” Ms Powell said.

Thanoon, 11, from West Mosul lost his foot when his house was hit by a mortar in March last year, The blast killed his father, younger sister and four other family members Picture: Ibrahim Sherkhan/ICRC

Ms Powell at the Orthotics manufacturing workshop Picture: Alhamzah Jawad/ ICRC

There are around 40 Australian Red Cross aid workers helping in countries affected by armed conflict and disasters at any one time. Last year, more than 140 of these workers completed more than 350 missions to 59 countries.

For Ms Powell, the opportunity to help is her passion.

She lives in Baghdad’s green zone, the fortified centre, but she says the city is becoming safer by the day and she feels hope for the future of the country that was once the cradle of civilisation.

“It’s very bright and vibrant and the people are amazingly friendly and resilient for what they have been through. The people here drive me and I just enjoy it from a humanitarian perspective,” she said.

www.redcross.org.au

Originally published as Sydney woman helping war wounded walk again in Iraq