Thanks to the tenacity of the medical teams caring for him and the unfailing support of his mother, Abdifatah is on his way to a full recovery.  

Abdifatah is 12 years old, is the only child of divorced parents and lives in Burao with his mother. In October 2004 he was the victim of a serious car accident. With a broken right femur and three skull fractures, Abdifatah fell into a deep coma. As the Burao Hospital did not have the equipment required to treat him, he was transferred to the hospital at Hargeisa. The doctors observed that the skull fractures had caused brain damage leading to right-sided hemiplegia and a loss of speech.

In February 2005, Dr Yassin, the hospital director asked the team of physiotherapists to look after the young boy who was still in a semi coma. The health professionals found that the femur had not consolidated correctly and the child had developed spasticity¹ and contractures in the limbs.
His treatment represented a real challenge as the physiotherapists had to reduce the contractures on a poorly consolidated bone. A schedule was drawn up and the team visited his home twice a week. The rest of the week his mother did his stretching and mobility exercises with him. The healthcare workers soon realised that two sessions a week was insufficient. They then asked his mother to bring him to the center, located 150 metres from the hospital. She took him there a few times a week and little by little the contractures disappeared along with the spasticity. The team was then faced with a further problem: the child was unable to speak. This made him upset and anxious. He tried but often the words were incomprehensible. Then, one month after arriving at the centre, the miracle happened and he said the words:  "My name is Abdifatah!" Since then his diction has distinctly improved. After six months of rehabilitation he can now sit up, stand up and walk with a support, and is now able to speak clearly.

^{Christophe Giraux}

^{1 Spasticity: exaggerated and poorly-coordinated contraction of groups of muscles.}