Iraqi amputees take the plunge to forget horrors of IS

ARBIL, Iraq: With artificial limbs in the place of legs they lost to jihadists, a group of Iraqis plunged into a swimming pool for a special race aimed at helping them overcome the horrors of war. Abdel Zahra Kazem, a soldier from southern Iraq who was wounded in an attack in Baghdad, said getting back in the pool had helped him to rediscover one of his passions in life.

"I've swum since I was a child and today I can start again," he said by the poolside at a hotel in Arbil, capital of the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq. Rabie Abdellatif lost a leg in an attack by the Islamic State (IS) jihadist group in Iraq's second city Mosul, which was left in ruins by the government´s battle against the jihadists.

Thanks to his artificial limb, he said he has recovered "80 percent of my capabilities from life before".