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Long Road to Recovery for the Victims of Iraq Bombings

Salam Hussein's father was once his soccer coach. Now he's his physical therapist, hoping that his son will one day be able to walk again. Hussein was sprayed with shrapnel when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a stadium south of the Iraqi capital where the 23-year-old had been playing for his local club […]

Ali Abdul-Hassan writes for AP:

Salam Hussein's father was once his soccer coach. Now he's his physical therapist, hoping that his son will one day be able to walk again.

Hussein was sprayed with shrapnel when a suicide bomber blew himself up in a stadium south of the Iraqi capital where the 23-year-old had been playing for his local club soccer team, Al-Rafidain. Hussein was wounded in the back of his neck, leaving his left arm and leg paralyzed.

While hundreds of Iraqis are killed every month in bombings — 29 died in the March 25 blast in the stadium in Iskandariyah — Hussein's plight underscores the problems faced by the thousands who are left wounded in such attacks, many of them with serious injuries. Iraq's health system is dilapidated, often without facilities for long-term treatment, and there are few services for the disabled, who are often left without freedom of movement and unable to work or attend school.