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Friday March 29, 2024

Jordan 3D lab prints limbs for war wounded, disabled kids

By AFP
February 23, 2018

AMMAN: Iraqi soldier Abdullah lost his left hand fighting the Islamic State group but now he has a prosthetic one — thanks to a 3D printing lab in Jordan. Abdullah was wounded in a mine blast as Iraqi forces battled to oust the jihadists from Iraq’s second city Mosul last year. His right hand was also seriously wounded. The 22-year-old is one of a group of Iraqi, Syrian and Yemeni amputees to benefit from a 3D-printing prosthetics clinic at a hospital run by the medical charity Doctors Without Borders (MSF). “It’s not easy to replace a hand, but at least the new device gives me some autonomy and means I don’t rely too much on my brother to eat,” said Abdullah, who asked not to use his real name. Wearing jeans and a dark green shirt, he said he had been transferred from Mosul to a hospital in the Iraqi Kurdish regional capital Arbil before heading to Jordan.